Archive for tag: Nigeria call up Ameobi for international duty.

Shola in demand by Birmingham and Nigeria

January 25th, 2011 | 77 Comments |

Shola Ameobi gets £1.5m bid from Birmingham
Toon number 2 striker?
Birmingham City make a bid for Newcastle United’s Shola Ameobi. Meanwhile, Alan Pardew has to consider letting the striker attend to his international duties.

According to The Daily Mail, Birmingham City have lodged a cheeky £1.5m bid to buy Shola from us which, The Mail speculates, we’ll ‘firmly rebut’.

Shola does – to put it kindly – elicit a ‘mixed response’ from fans and pundits alike and is often on the end of some fairly harsh criticism. Even so, £1.5m for our third highest scorer this season does seem a bit insulting (assuming The Mail’s report is true of course).

The 29 year old has 18 months left to run on his contract and is arguably our number 2 striker after Andy Carroll as he often gets the nod ahead of Best, Lovenkrands, Ranger and Xisco.

I can’t imagine Alan Pardew will be keen to let him go, particularly with Andy Carroll yet to come back from injury.

That’s a point that’s backed up by Pardew’s apparent reluctance to free up Shola for international duty for Nigeria’s friendly against Guatemala on February 9th. The game comes between our fixtures at home to Arsenal and away to Blackburn and it’s doubtful whether Shola would be available to play for us against Blackburn after a midweek international and the associated transatlantic travel. (more…)