Why get rid of Leon Best?

There is a little bit in The Sun (yes, yes, titter titter) today suggesting that Leon Best has been told that he will be allowed to leave St James' Park over the summer.

Apparently the club will accept somewhere in the region of £4 million, and if Leon wants to go then he is free to graze on the new pastures of another club. In fairness it's not bad considering the money that we paid for him, but I'd much rather keep him at the club over the rest of our current strikeforce.

Now don't get me wrong, I had hoped that we'd end up with better than Best over the summer, but in my mind he is the only one of our current strikers who had actually proved a point and had deserved another shot at it this season.

He scored six goals in 11 league appearances, which isn't to be sniffed at and makes me wonder just how many he could have got had he not suffered that ankle injury. Compare that with Shola Ameobi (6 in 28 appearances) and Peter Lovenkrands (6 in 25 appearances) and, as you may have noticed, it compares very favourably.

Add to that the fact that Best is five years younger than Shola and seven years younger than Lovenkrands and, well you can see where I'm going. Needless to say I'm left scratching my head.

Of course it is The Sun so large pinches of salt must be taken, but for me there are other strikers that we should contemplate booting out the door ahead of Best. The imminent arrival of Demba Ba will mean that he is going to be one of our first-choice strikers, but in the event of injury who would you rather call upon? Look at the stats!

Baffling, but then again I know I should never be baffled with happenings at NUFC