Cisse – Back in the goals against Leeds.My latest blog at metro.co.uk is now up!
Now entitled “Left-field selection Sammy Ameobi helps Papiss Cisse break his Newcastle scoring duck,” it orignally had the same title as this piece until a sub-editor got his or her hands on it. Thankfully though, they seem to have left the story intact this time, apart from taking my correct spelling of ‘Yoan Gouffran’ and changing it to ‘Yoann Gouffran’ like another French player, Yoann Gourcuff.
Enough of my petty griping though, the piece itself takes a look at the return of Papiss Cisse to the score sheet in Wednesday evening’s League Cup game against Leeds United. It also takes a look at the role of two of the best players in that particular game, Sammy Ameobi and Yoan Gouffran. In particular I look at how, for a change, Alan Pardew actually had a left footed player, Ameobi the younger, playing on the left hand side rather than a right footer who would constantly cut in. This resulted in a superb left footed cross by the big lad for Cisse’s goal, with Ameobi also playing a role in Gouffran’s spectacular second goal in what was an excellent performance overall on the wing from the youngster. (more…)
NUFC Blog’s latest piece on metro.co.uk is out now!This is just a quick ‘blog to let you all know that my latest piece for Metro.co.uk was published earlier today.
Entitled “Sissoko was great, but let’s hear it for Gouffran too” it takes a look at Yoan Gouffran’s excellent performance against Chelsea on Saturday, a performance which might be overlooked in the midst of “Moussa mania.”
To read it, just click on the link above or on the Metro image.
Bienvenue à Toon Yoan Gouffran! (second left).Hello and welcome to the first in my series where I shall be probing the latest batch of French fancies picked up on Graham Carr’s Eurostar shopping trips to Lille.
I will be looking at the latest four signings in no particular order, who were Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, Yoan Gouffran, Massadio Haïdara and Moussa Sissoko. There was of course a fifth who came before them, Mathieu Debuchy, but the pursuit of him went on for so long that I have already written several pieces about him, including this one where I looked at Debuchy in comparison with Newcastle United’s existing first choice right back, Danny Simpson, when Debuchy was still a Lille player. Hence, I will leave him on the backburner for now.
So without further ado I will move on to the first of our French foursome, Yoan Gouffran, purchased from our Group D Europa League opponents, Girondins de Bordeaux for a highly cut price fee of €2.5 million, which converts to around £2.1 million at current exchange rates. This was because Gouffran’s contract at Bordeaux was due to expire in the Summer anyway and he was already free to reach a pre contract agreement with another club which could have seen him leave Bordeaux for nothing in the Summer. Let’s start by getting his statistics out the way!
Gouffran: "Tomorrow I will be a Newcastle player."Many of you out there will know by about the signing of versatile 23 year old Montpellier defender, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, confirmed this evening on the Newcastle United’s official website. You have probably heard about the allegedly imminent arrival of 20 year old Nancy full back Massadio Haïdara too.
The other one which has been slightly more “under the radar” has been that of 26 year old forward Yoan Gouffran, who played against the Magpies in the first (home) leg of our Europa League tie against Bordeaux.
Well anyway, though there has been no official confirmation by either of the clubs involved at the time of writing, Gouffran confirmed on his Twitter site that he will be joining Newcastle United, subject presumably to a medical of course. So here’s a full translation of what he wrote below:
