Who Is Coming to Sunderland and Newcastle?

Brian Equator wrote...

The transfer rumour mill in full flow perhaps but Jimmy Cricket, Ardal O'Hanlon & Frank Carson were seen talking to Roy Keane yesterday. Seems as if Sunderland are intending to be the stand up comedians of the Premiership again next season!

Posted by: Brian Equator  | May 18, 2007 5:36 PM

Andrew Donohue wrote...

Tal Ben Haim, Djibril Cisse, Mark Viduka, Sol Campbell and Steve Sidwell would be massive signings for Newcastle United in the sense that they're not all money-grabbing layabouts like the current squad. They are all proven players, and, under the guidance of Sam Allardyce, could - fingers crossed - push Newcastle United toward silverware.

Posted by: Andrew Donohue  | May 18, 2007 11:28 PM

javed shaikh wrote...

hey luke,
there r lot of noises supporting mark viduka's arrival at nufc but i do have my reservation about him. At 31 he is at his twilight of his career and has not done much at middlesborough except for his seven goals in last 6 games. We arent sure whether we will see both oba and owen in black and white shirt next season .we might need a new strking pair and i dont think viduka is that capable to fill that shoes if only oba and owen stays then he can be a good third striker ,but i dont see him lasting 90 minutes for most part of the season. As far as defence is concerned both sol campbell and ben haiem would be wonderful signing and we will get that solidity at the back that we lacked for the past 3 or 4 seasons and wayne bridge would be the icing on th cake .it would be pleasing to the eyes if we see these 3 defenders at St james park next season.

Posted by: javed shaikh  | May 19, 2007 7:41 AM

Adam Beckett wrote...

I think that Nolan, Ben Haim, Campbell and Bridge would be the perfect summer....

Posted by: Adam Beckett  | May 19, 2007 10:31 PM

medan wrote...

Wow, I seriously thought that Sam will be attempting to build a different team than what he had in Bolton, the assumption being funds were not avilable for him to recuit top exciting players when he was in Bolton. To my surprise he is trying to recuit half of the Bolton team. I will be honest with you if he recruits all the guys in the list we might finish in the top 6 or 7 but it will not be a team with a foundation for playing entertaining football with possibility of craking the top 4 in the next 3 yrs, hope for the sake of the fans I an very wrong.

Posted by: medan  | May 20, 2007 1:34 AM

SPOTtheZEBRA wrote...

Dismayed at local media suggestions that Juve are planning to bid for Obafemi Martins and that the writer believes it would be accepted.
Why the HECK should we sell a young striker having scored 17 goals in his first season with us for "something approaching the £10 million we payed for him" ?
Madness.

Note From Luke
What is madness is believing Michael Owen and Obafemi Martins will play alongside each other at Newcastle next season. They didn't ever look like forming a partnership last season in the few games they played together and Allardyce has never been a big fan of the little and littler strike duo has he?

One of them will leave this summer, I'd put money on it!

Posted by: SPOTtheZEBRA  | May 22, 2007 9:06 AM

adam wrote...

i think ben haim is nailed on to come, and if we can get campbell then centre halfs will be covered (altho im not convinced with ramage). i think we are kidding ourselves if we think bridge will come. he is too expensive and so are his wages. baines would be a far better, and cheaper buy. get rid of parker and dyer to raise some funds, and replace with ljungburg and barton and we have the basis of a good team. we must add another striker, not sell anyone but as the majority of these players are available on free transfers there shoud be plenty funds left to purchase one. oh, and a new right back wouldnt go amiss either. outside the top 4, there isnt anyone special and i feel top 6 wil be within reach if we can keep onto owen and sort the defence.

Posted by: adam  | May 22, 2007 12:23 PM

True Mag wrote...

I'd be receptive to Anelka coming as he seemed to behave himself under Allardyce at Bolton. Nicky Shorey would be an inspired choice and I think Freddie Ljunburg would do a good job for a couple of years. It would also be good for James Milner to play alongside him. As for the rest, much of muchness, Ben Haim fair enough, Viduka, God please no!

Posted by: True Mag  | May 22, 2007 1:21 PM

iain wrote...

sam said there where plenty of good players out in europe and i tend to agree with him, nufc has a history of buying europes soft touch players but anyone who watched la liga for a while could of told souness that luque was the spanish robert.

what we need is players from europe with technique and the physique to play in the premiership.

a couple i think could do very well...

yaya toure (monaco) CM - brother of arsenals' kolo toure, wenger tried to sign him before he went to monaco, yaya has often been refered to as the new patrick viera. was one of the outstanding young talents at the world cup for the ivory coast. allardyce has already had succes taking ivorian international meite (part of the marseille team that knocked sir bobs toon out the uefa in which we failed to score in either leg) to bolton from marseille.

rio mavuba (bordeaux) CM - french u21 international, described as the new makelele. itching for a move to a bigger league.

and there are plenty other very good players out in europe playing for clubs that as a big pl club should have no problem being able to compete financially for there best players, most will leave first chance they get to come to england simply for the better wages. look at portsmouth they are about to sign one of the best young players of the world cup ghanas sulley muntari.

gabriel obertan (bordeaux), julien faubert (bordeaux), lucien aubey (toulouse), marcell janssen (b.m.gladbach), bacary sagna (auxerre), matthieu bodmere (lille), kader keita (lille), jean makoun (lille), aldo duscher (deportivo).

not to mention south america - palacio (boca), nero cardozo (boca), fernando belluschi (river plate).

the difference for nufc now is that we have manager with a proven track record of improving and adapting relativley unknown foreign players to the english game.

Note From Luke
Have you been playing Football Manager Iain?

Posted by: iain  | May 22, 2007 11:41 PM

Little Lord Fauntleroy wrote...

I think I'd agree with adam.
Leighton Baines as our new left-back with Campbell next to Taylor. I'm not sure about Ben Haim but I'm reliably informed that he's a good centre-half.

Sell Dyer, Parker, Duff and Martins for me. Even accept a cheeky bid for Emre if one should be forthcoming.
I reckon that might give us about £25 million to play with.

Baines, Campbell, Ben Haim, Shorey and Cisse from that list, but please NO VIDUKA!

Posted by: Little Lord Fauntleroy  | May 23, 2007 8:47 AM

Little Lord Fauntleroy wrote...

P.S. It's amazing that those Retards down the road are being linked with nearly all the players Glen Roeder was linked with.

Was Roeder a tactical genius or is Roy Keane as desperate as our fallen Messiah?....

Posted by: Little Lord Fauntleroy  | May 23, 2007 8:53 AM

Anonymous wrote...

i think barton and ljungburg will be 2 good singing and a would love to see james millner stay.

Posted by: Anonymous  | May 23, 2007 10:46 AM

Andile wrote...

i think Juan Roman Riquelme would add enough experience in the mid.he apparently had a run-inn with the Villareal manager and he is in Argentina

Posted by: Andile  | May 23, 2007 2:32 PM

iain wrote...

"Note From Luke
Have you been playing Football Manager Iain?"

no, i just watch enough european football to be able to see the quality players out there. as a journalist maybe you should try it you might find out that im actually right.

As the few quality available players with pl expereince your paper seem to think might come here are pretty much nailed to to go else where, i thought maybe we should be looking elsewhere. (shorey would be a class signing or have you not been watching any football this season, if sidwell was good enough for us after one season of pl why not the best english left back outside the top 4 ?)

and like i said if pompey can sign a player like muntari and we dont even want to look at good foreign players then i do wonder how ambitious our club really is, i backed up my point with the success allardyce has had at bolton, correct me if im wrong but didnt souness scout meite (who cost bolton about 1m) and then sign boumsong instead ?

luke maybe you can tell me whats the point of going to scout south america if nufc is going there to sign there second rate players ?

there are very few quality players in south america, as being a football journalist you probably know pretty much all of argentinas talent under 21 yrs old is playing in europe now for big clubs and that cardozo is the only real talent left that isnt of full international age.

sidwell has gone to chelsea and its looks like ben-haim will follow him.

heraidasson and distin are of to pompey and so maybe viduka when all would of been great squad players here remember we need really need 5 new defenders to cover for injuries and suspensions and probably a lw to cover duffs injury and a cf to replace sibierski. not to mention any other deals if the likes of owen/martins/dyer/parker/emre/nzogbia/carr/babayaro leave.

so unless mr shepard has given allardyce £35m minimum we probably should of got the good players available on bosmans to boost the squad, but no doubt we will waste money on 3/4 players only when we need a sqaud. every seson a manager says we we need x amount of players then releases one more and signs one less making the squad even smaller.

the final point i will make is there arnt enough quality players in england to go round the teams outside the top 4 when it looks like so many will be spending big this summer. so imo the only option is to go foreign.

Note From Luke
You don't have to tell me about Shorey, he started his career at Leyton Orient. We sold him for pennies, but hopefully there is a sell-on clause so a mulit million pound transfer will do me fine!

Posted by: iain  | May 23, 2007 2:51 PM

LB wrote...

I totally agree with Iain, it's about time this club went for quality foreign players, that have the technical and physical ability along with the other attributes that make them top quality players'( ie what Arsene Wenger looks for in a footballer). A few players I would add to that list would be: Philippe Senderos(Arsenal), Wesley Sneider(Ajax), Alexandre Song(Arsenal), Diego(Werder Bremen), Sami Nasri(Marseille), Bernard Mendy (PSG), Nicky Hunt(Bolton), Rafael Van Der Vaart(Hamburg), Vincent Kompany(Hamburg). With the World Youth Cup(under-20 in Canada)the Under 21 Tournament and the Coppa America happening this summer you would think we would have scouts present at these events wouldn't you?
Also just a note to add on, that "scouting" trip to South America only got to Paris as when they got there, Roeder was sacked and they had to do a U-Turn!

Posted by: LB  | May 24, 2007 5:48 PM

zulu wrote...

Agree with the good comments from Andile and True Mag. I`ve been stating for years on NUFC blogs, get to the African Nations Cup. Don`t wait for the other lessor Euro Cubs to take a chance on "minor" stars from Africa. Just look at Didier, Essien or Benni McCarthy as examples who have come straight into the PL and shone.

Posted by: zulu  | May 25, 2007 7:00 AM

Dave (Gosforth) wrote...

Here we go again - Newcastle set to sign a number of overrated players from midtable clubs and naively expect to be something more than a midtable club themselves! As if that is not enough, after the years we have been desperate to offload the trouble makers and 'comfort zone' players we are today linked with Joey Barton and Mark Viduka! I'm sorry but it's pathetic. Big club? I don't think so, unless taking your fans for fools makes you big and clever. Season ticket renewal form ripped up, I'll leave it to the blind sheep to clap their hands and shout 'attack attack attack' next season.

Posted by: Dave (Gosforth)  | May 31, 2007 5:27 PM