EthiGeordie

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4367230/Vurnon-Anita-worth-twice-your-4m-bid-Ajax-tell-Newcastle.html ALAN PARDEW has been told to double his £4million bid for Ajax midfielder Vurnon Anita — or forget it. Magpies bid for Ajax’s Anita TOON turn to Dutch Mr Versatile as they seek reinforcements ahead of Europa campaign Reading: He’s a grand Dame The Dutch champions have wasted no time in rejecting the Newcastle chief’s opening offer for the midfielder. Ajax manager Ronald De Boer values Anita, 23, who has three Holland caps, at £8m and will not sell for less. De Boer knows that Toon are not Inita’s only admirers. New Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert has also been tracking the midfield tough-guy. But Newcastle are expected to be back with an improved bid amid fears midfielder Cheick Tiote could be on his way. The Ivorian, who cost £3.5m, is wanted by Chelsea and Manchester United.

Yay... Thanks for Jinxing it Swelly

I would be over the moon if we pull this one. For me DM is he most important position we need to cover in. I said it earlier and I say it now as well. With so many yellow cards for Tiote and African cup of nations we need an able deputy. I also like us to play with 2 DM when we play away to the bigger guys...

Carr: "Here For The Long Haul" Graham Carr Widely regarded as one of the best talent-spotters in the country, if not Europe, Graham Carr has helped Newcastle to bring in players like Cheick Tiote, Papiss Cisse, Yohan Cabaye, Hatem Ben Arfa and Sylvain Marveaux since he arrived as Chief Scout in February 2010. This week, the lifelong Magpies fan, who was previously a successful lower league manager, agreed a new eight-year contract with the club - with some already describing it as the signing of the summer. And the 67-year-old father of comedian Alan Carr told DAN KING that he hopes he'll still be laughing for many years to come in terms of securing more gems for United. How do you feel after signing your new contract, Graham? And how did it come about? To be honest, it was quite a shock really. I got a phone call from Derek Llambias who asked if I was available to come and meet Mike (Ashley). We had a chat for three or four hours about everything on our side, the scouting side, and then I met Mike again the next day for a couple of hours. We spent a couple of days talking about our targets, which had been discussed previously with Alan (Pardew). Alan had identified the players we're after and for Mike, who's a busy man, it was a great opportunity for us to get together and talk about them. And when I got offered the contract, I signed there and then. We were just discussing players and suddenly, out of nothing, he told me what he was going to offer me. I like working for him so it didn't matter if it was one year or 20 years. I just like working for Newcastle - but it came as a real surprise. Eight years is a long time, though. Why such a long-term deal? I think he wants stable staff at the club. He wants them to hopefully be here for the long haul. And I think that's really important. A stable manager - because Alan has a long-term contract here too - his staff, and my staff too, all staying together and taking the club forward. Last season we finished fifth and that might not be possible every year, but with continuity and stability hopefully we can keep on that circle. You were born in Northumberland and you're a Newcastle fan. Did that influence your decision to commit yourself to the club for so long? Of course. It's like a dream job for me anyway. I'm from Newcastle, I like working for Newcastle. To be fair, I'm lucky to be working in this job and for good people. I work very closely with Derek Llambias most of the time, and Lee Charnley (Football Secretary) and I have a very good relationship with Alan who works very hard on it from his side of things. We've got that mutual trust which is a big thing, isn't it? How does your role fit into what the manager is trying to do at Newcastle? I obviously do the scouting and then what happens is we put a list together of players in positions that we think we'll be looking for. Alan will go out to watch players too when he gets the opportunity, but he likes to rely on me a little bit because his job is very time-consuming. Some weeks they play Saturday or Sunday, some weeks they play Monday, so it's not always possible for him to get out and watch players. But when he does get the opportunity, he does go out; I just try to point a few out for him to go and have a look at. We've got a team of scouts, it's not just me. We don't have a lot of scouts but we have people who do match reports as well as individual scouting. We do a lot of European games because we think it's the best market. You can always try and get a bargain there; if you go to somebody in England, or even the lower leagues, they go 'oh Newcastle, Premier League, we'll have a few bob out of these.' But we know the markets which we're looking for. How often, on average, do you spend looking for players? I'm usually away three out of the four weekends every month - but I always have a weekend at home. I live in Northamptonshire and the thing about that, which the club don't mind at all, is I've got access to the Eurostar and I've got five airports less than an hour from my house. I can get to Birmingham, I can get to East Midlands, I've got St. Pancras within an hour of my house, I can get to Luton in 40 minutes, I can get to Stansted, and Heathrow is within 75 miles. It's all within reach - I can get anywhere I want. I spend a fair bit of time in Germany because I think Germany's style of football is similar to ours, and of course that's where we signed Papiss Cisse from. But I watched Papiss Cisse long before Freiburg - I was watching him even before he had a European passport! I watched Yohan Cabaye for a long time too. I've been doing the job for 14 years for different clubs; Tottenham for five years, Manchester City for seven, so it's not as if it's new to me, the job. And the players aren't new to me either. Cisse and Cabaye are just a couple of the players you've helped to identify since you came to Newcastle in February 2010. You must be pleased with your record? I like to think so, but that's my job really! You've got to give the owner a bit of credit here. He's put money into it, Mike Ashley, and he's a big help. And Alan Pardew moulding the team helps as well. The latest player to arrive at Newcastle on your recommendation is Romain Amalfitano. What impressed you about him? He's been playing for Reims who were promoted last year. He was playing regularly but he was out of contract. He's only played in the French second division but he's a good player and he boosts the squad. It make take a while to break in but if he works hard, I've got every confidence that he'll be a brilliant player. He's got pace. He can play wide right, he's played centrally before, he can pass... he's just one of these who has got a bit of a chance. He'll probably take a while to come into the starting line-up but you're not going to get a ready-made star for nothing, are you? And his signing suggests that you and your team are already working hard ahead of next season... We always are. Every year, we know what we're looking for the year after for Newcastle. We look for new players and we also look again at ones we've scouted before, to see if they've improved or matured. We're always looking forward. It's a never-ending job. You're still looking all the time. You don't say, 'right, the summer has come by, let's start looking for players.' During the season, you need to be ready for the windows. You could get a fantastic offer for somebody, or someone could get an injury and you need to replace them. It never stops - but I love it.

BPLTransferNews ‏@BPLTransferNews #NUFC will make a final offer to Douglas in the coming days, if he doesn't accept, they will move to other targets

Basically if we want the lad deal has to be concluded before this weekend otherwise we end up with Clyne.

French press say Inter Milan will scout Mathieu Debuchy in France's last warm-up vs Estonia tonight before making a decision.

But we call Pardew Pardiola enough to confuse Ruskie..

I have this bad feeling Abrhamovich might want him.

That Ashley decision to send him for free looks like another masterstroke.

If the Russian give us 40 mil I would be quite happy.

lol love it

I was looking forward to see M'Villa

If Chelsea are interested in him we should try to swap him with Lukaku.

#PrayforRodgers.

Whealn is such a d**k. he should be just shut it up. I am not surprised ashley doesn't like him

WOW The grass already implanted..

We are third in Debt league.... Premier League: the alternative results table Monday 14 May 2012 In a dramatic conclusion to a nail-biting finale, Manchester City grabbed the Premier League title with seconds to spare. But when football finances are considered, was it really such a surprise? Hundreds of Man City fans are lining the streets on Monday to celebrate winning English football's top prize for the first time in 44 years. But football finance expert Dr John Beech is not quite so impressed - and not just because he is a Portsmouth fan. "You could sum it up as 'billion-dollar-team' beats 'one-man-down' team", he told Channel 4 News. "There's evidence that buying success is not always guaranteed, but when you buy it on such a scale as Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour, it is." Premier League: the alternative results table The Channel 4 News alternative league table shows the levels of debt within the Premier League (based on most recent figures available) and does not even take into account this season's most recent epic spending. While clubs' total spend and debt accumulation does not correlate exactly with their position based on points, the big spenders float towards the top and the teams that actually make a profit are in the minority. It's destroying any natural competitive balance, moving away from realms of sport to realm of entertainment. Yes it's entertaining, but it's not sport. It's the uncertainty of outcome that's being removed. Dr John Beech Manchester City last year posted record annual losses of £195m following a spend of £175m on wages alone, funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Carlos Tevez was bought for a reputed £47m, and along with Yaya Toure receives a weekly salary of around £200,000. City fans may be overjoyed at their last-gasp triumph at the weekend, but many believe their new-founded dominance merely confirms that the game's finances are spiralling out of control. "The spending of this scale started 20 years ago with the formation of the Premier League, and I do see it as 'football selling its soul'," said Dr Beech. "It's destroying any natural competitive balance, moving away from realms of sport to realm of entertainment. Yes it's entertaining, but it's not sport. It's the uncertainty of outcome that's being removed." Financial fair play regulations Uefa is attempting to put teams on a more equal footing by controlling clubs' spending, imposing a £38m cap on losses through financial fair play regulations, which will come into play from 2013 to 2015. Clubs will be fined or risk exclusion from their league if they fail to comply. The aim is that clubs will be forced to compete on commercial revenues, so that if they make money they can spend it, but relying on hugely wealthy benefactors will not be an option. Whether the regulations will have an impact is yet to be seen. Wyn Grant, co-editor of footballeconomy.com and professor of politics at Warwick University, is not convinced. For a start teams may be able to mount a legal challenge, and Uefa will have to be careful about how many teams it gets rid of, he told Channel 4 News: "What they will really do is entrench the status quo. The Real Madrids, the Barcelonas, will stay top of the pile if the regulations are in fact enforceable." Read more: Is it the 'English' Premier League any more? Long-term aim It could take up to 10 years before Uefa's regulations manage to equalise club's spending - that is, if the clubs themselves play ball. "My main concern is that fans are tending to be uncritical - all they care about is what happens on the pitch, not what happens in the boardroom," Dr Beech said. "But I would hope to think that within ten years, we'll be looking back and saying 'how on earth was this allowed to happen'." http://www.channel4.com/news/premier-league-the-alternative-results-table

Mbiwa will be monster.. I hope we will pull it off.

I still ask my self how we end up with him. It is still surreal moment.

There is always better to leave on top.

Drogba is leaving....

omg it is so funny it made my day

Frank De bore is their no 1 target according to the Sun....

I remember Pardew says he change his formation because of Mulumbu. I am not surprised if he ends here.