Alan Smith told he can leave Newcastle - Taylor bid confirmed.

Swansea City have confirmed that Newcastle have bid for their 22-year-old left-back Neil Taylor whilst Alan Smith has been told that he is free to find another club this summer.

Smith is one of the players that is still on a huge wage at Newcastle. That wouldn't be a problem as such, if he justified it, but the fact is that he just doesn't do enough on the pitch for Newcastle United these days. Good for the dressing room he may be, but £60,000-a-week for what is essentially a cheerleader is a lot of money.

That is not to be too down on Alan Smith of course. I don't think many will argue that the lad has passion and is committed to the cause and he's done his job at times when called upon. However, he just doesn't have what it takes to cut it in the Premier League now. You can blame Alex Ferguson for that in my opinion as it was him who changed Alan Smith from the battering ram forward into a midfield battler.

Now it's just a case of trying to find the lad another club. Realistically it's going to be a tough ask as Smith can quite happily sit on his contract for the next two seasons knowing that any other club is unlikely to match what we are currently paying him.

I don't think the end has come on bad terms. I just think that the realisation is there that Smith is only going to be a bit-part player at NUFC and has been told that if he wants more football then he'll have to go elsewhere to find it. Not a bad thing in my eyes.

Meanwhile it would appear that Newcastle have indeed bid for Neil Taylor of Swansea, which will of course bring about lots more speculation regarding the future of Jose Enrique.

As ever, nothing has been confirmed by Newcastle, but Sky Sports have it as one of their top stories :roll: and Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins, who by the way is going to take over from Ian Holloway and be the most annoying person on TV next season, had this to say:

"We have received a proposal from Newcastle regarding Neil. But the proposal has not been accepted or rejected at this stage."

"We have received a number of enquiries from different clubs for Neil's services and, like all bids we receive for any of our players, we will be talking it over with him when he returns from a break next week."

"Neil is a player we brought to the club this season from the Conference with Wrexham with a view to him progressing and developing with us over a number of years. The last thing on our mind was to sell anyone over the summer."

So bid lodged but that's about it. Is this the end of Jose Enrique at Newcastle? Or are we finally getting the lad some backup? If it's the former it's not exactly the signal that I want to see coming out of St James' Park.

What do you think of these two bits of news?