7-Up (for sale)

Story in the Chronicle claims the club are actively trying to con the rest of the footballing world into buying (very) damaged goods, specifically - Coloccini, Cisse, Abeid, Obertan, Marveaux, Williamson and Gouffran.

Apparently the club have - and I suggest you sit down for this one - knocked back an offer for Williamson. Do not adjust your screen. One can only assume the offer was for us to pay for his taxi.

No real issue with the clear lack of quality of those "up for sale". But again I hark back to the fact that things actually aren't very different. We have been hammered and hammered with lower and lower expectancies - we sign THREE players and suddenly we're flying on angel's wings.

 

3 of they are out of contract next summer so bearing in mind what Mac said about several windows worst case in two windows time at least 3 will be gone.
It's a shame Pardew doesn't want to resign some of his old favourites,

 

I'd keep Abeid, Cisse and Colo.

Abeid looks like he's going to be a decent player - I don't understand why he'd be up for sale. Colo is past his best but we need some depth and he is still better than Williamson. Taylor will spend 6 months of every season injured so can't even be considered. Unless we sign Austin then Cisse is our only proven PL goalscorer and he should be kept. His game may be lacking in most other areas, but he knows where the goal is. We don't yet know how long Mitrovic will take to adapt so to sell Cisse seems a bit of a risk.

 

Agree with all of that.

 

this

 

Why keep Abeid, injury prone, can't shoot to save his life and done nothing to warrant retaining.

 

Personally I like Abeid. I think he has a lot to offer in terms of his physical capacity and ball retention.

Only two things worry me about him. One he is very injury prone as Heed noted (although he had no such issue in Greece - perhaps start/stop appearances here is not helping). The other is that although his passing is very good and he retains the ball well, at least once a game he seems to play a suicidal pass.

One of those I'd like to see us develop but you'd have to question where he sits in this new set up. I wouldn't be surprised if McClaren may well see Gini and Anita as his two in the deeper part of midfield. Colback would of course be the obvious instead of Anita, I just think McClaren might like Anita.

 

I like Abeid too, physically he's terrific, only his technique is mediocre.

 

What I can't understand is why people are still optimistic. So far we've filled one gaping hole with unproven Mitrovic who has that classic virtue of sell on value and appear to be swapping Colo for Mbemba and Sissoko for Wijnaldum. Hell we are probably selling Cisse as well.

 

How many games has Abeid played?

He put in a couple of decent shifts, got injured, and we've been raving about him since.

He has been with is a heck of a long time, and a couple of stand-in performances when down to the bare-bones are all he has to show for it. If we lose him, it'll be no real loss and he'll fall into football oblivion.

We need to improve our first team squad, screw the current backups!

 

I suspect we will wait for 2 new CBs to be signed up before we allow Coloccini and Williamson to go. Like we did with Debuchy and Janmaat.

 

Yep, the concept of "squad" I still feel is lost on NUFC. We need 4 CB's to let them go.

 

Colo's most likely going to remain part of the squad for this season. I'd expect him and Mbemba to be our starting CBs going into the start of the season, even if another quality CB is added this window. McClaren should know by now that Willo can't be relied upon and Taylor, Lascelles and Dummett are fair cover options for a club with Newcastle's ambitions. Moving Willo on to the Championship at a cut price and signing Joel Matip or James Chester has to be the priority before the window closes. The new CB signing can hopefully get a run of games alongside Mbemba so we have a smooth exit for Colo next summer.

There are still gaps in the squad to be filled, but if we make one more signing it has to be a CB.

 

Colo can go, I wasnt sure and probably would have been inclined to keep him, but the images that appeared on twitter that showed him drinking beer in jesmond whilst the team were palying Sheff united, is inexcusable!

Im not saying this pictures are 100% accurate, as we all know pics like this can always be mis-timed or whatever, but if they are real then he should be stripped of captaincy and let go. When its pre-seaon every player should be giving everything to get as physically fit as possible and going out on the beers is a p!ss take

 

I could see loans happening to free up squad places here.