24 hours after movement on the betting exchanges led to speculation over his future, Newcastle manager Alan Pardew flew to Europe on a scouting mission. We understand that Pardew made his way to the Swiss city of Basel to take in the Euro 2012 qualifier between Switzerland and Bulgaria at St.Jakob Park. A serious knee injury meant that former toon transfer target Tranquillo Barnetta wasn't in the home lineup, but his Bayer Leverkusen colleague Erin Derdiyok started. The 23 year-old striker is playing on his hometown pitch and has been linked with a move to SJP at various times since 2008, a year before he moved from Basel to Bayer. Newspaper reports speculated that Magpie chief scout Graham Carr was present in Vaduz last month to watch Derdiyok score in a 2-1 friendly win over Liechenstein. Straight from nufc.com, ended with their traditional downbeat comment (which I chose to omit cos they're miserable bastards). I know nowt about the lad, discuss?
When he played at Wembley his touch looked very heavy. Not really seen enough of him to really pass judgement but he doesnt appear a massive step up from Best
As long as we spend money on a striker i don't care how crap they are, at least Mike would be using some of the 35m that we DESERVE to see spent
No to Erin Derdiyok, Yes to Xherdan Shaqiri scored a Hat-trick tonight for switzerland he reminds me of Van der Vaart and only 19 years old, really impressed me at u21 level aswell.
