Toon hand trial to Dutch midfielder

toonsy

18-year-old Jordan Botaka
Newcastle are set to hand a trial to 18-year-old Club Brugge midfielder/striker Jordan Botaka if reports in Belgium prove to be correct.

The Belgian outfit have rejected Newcastle’s advances although with the player currently not signed to any professional contract he could technically take up the offer of a trial should he choose to although the likelihood is that compensation will then be sought by by Brugge.

Botaka is a current Dutch youth international and has featured sporadically for the first team at Club Brugge. He is a another player who is “highly-rated” within the confines of his current club so I’m presuming Brugge will want to tie him down. Lille and QPR are also said to be interested in the player.

A little tip, turn the sound off when watching this!

Meanwhile news that Jason Prior will now be coming to Newcastle to take part in a trial has also been confirmed. Prior has scored a rather incredible 95 goals in 118 games for his current side although it’s fair to say that Bognor Regis are a fair few miles apart both in terms of distance and level of competition.

I’ve read some people rubbishing the move, but I’ve also read a lot of people praising the move and doffing their cap to Newcastle for giving the lad a chance. Yes it’s probably a fairytale and probably won’t work out but at the end of the day he has a chance to show he can mix it with much better players now and it’s up to him to take it.

It doesn’t happen often, but there are some players who don’t get picked up in their youth. Chris Smalling was playing for Maidstone a couple of seasons ago and is now a full England international with Manchester United. Ian Wright was spotted by Crystal Palace while playing for Dulwich Hamlet and never signed a professional contract until he was 22. Our very own Sir Les Ferdinand was picked up by QPR from Hayes. You get the point.

The reality is that Newcastle give trials to an awful lot of players each season, as do a lot of clubs. Some make it and earn an extended stay and some even make it to the first team in the future, but a lot of them don’t and will just disappear into relative obscurity once again.

They have a chance, it’s up to them to take it!

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

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144 thoughts on “Toon hand trial to Dutch midfielder”

  3. You never know Stu. Spending money by the barrel load never brought (or bought :razz:) them so you just never know 😉

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  4. We usually start getting in a lot of players in on trial around January. If Botaka is as good as I’ve read we might have another Abeid/Vuckic on our hands.

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  5. Anyone heard anything about the new shirt sponsorship? Thought Dicka said we needed one in place by Christmas so Puma could do what they wanted with the shirts?

    I must say, if we end up with Sports Direct.com on the front of the shirts I don’t think i’ll be buying one. Although I’ll be surprised if the Sports Direct Arena is called anything else for the next few years.

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  6. toonsy – Never did Chelsea, Man Utd, Blackburn or Man City any harm did it?

    I prefer to look at who was wasting that money, namely Souness.

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  8. Stuart , Souness didnt waste money at the club. It was all freddie , Souness wanted to buy Anelka and Boa Morte , we signed for Owen and Luque. Souness was a **** manager but he was not in charge of who came into the club.

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  9. re. the name of our ground. BBC 5 live and Talksport in the build up to the Liverpool game over the last few days have referred to our team’s home ground as St James’ Park – no mention of Mr Ashley’s alternative. Always suspected that people were getting knickers in a twist for nowt.

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  10. STUART@6, Blackburn at the time had Jack Walker and he was an old man with a Blackburn heart, he bought the title JUST but once he died, so did Blackburn.
    If Abramovich leaves Chelsea and no Sheikh or other oil billionaire comes in, then Chelsea become ordinary.
    Man City the same.
    ManUtd are a different breed and can sustain as long as they have their clever scouting/coaching and fergies judgement on the young players they bring through.
    Take a look at Man Utd’s squad and it’s made up of a lot of youngsters either homegrown or nurtured like Adheid e.t.c.

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  12. On another note lads, was talking to Simon Pride at a wedding (yes I know he’s a mackem) from bbc newcastle, he was talking about newcastle, and sunderland (I tried not to sound biased :mrgreen: ) he spoke alot of sense and actually was the one who told me that pardew had said that no striker would be bought in January, because I couldn’t get online as the wedding lasted 12 hours 😯 . He, john anderson and some other bloke does the football talk between 5-6pm me thinks, yet to catch it as I’m in bonny scotland but if you don’t already listen to it, I reckon you should. 😎

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  16. @14 – Santon is fine mate. He could have played in the Bolton game but was rested as a precaution. He will be in the squad today.

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  17. Johno Toon@8……3 of those players mentioned there were ALL top players. Luque was a great winger for Deportivo, Owen a world star, Anelka a world star, Boa Morte wasn’t too shabby either around that time either, he only went down hill in later years…

    To be honest I would have been ecstatic to sign any of those players. Hindsight is a great thing, who would have expected both Owen and Luque to be so disappointing buys for the toon…no-one.

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  18. FSOC…..I have a bad feeling about Santone, can see him being in and out of the side, rested regularly to keep his knee fresh.

    I hope I’m wrong though, cos the bloke needs regular games to come up to speed. He could be a great left back for the toon, I hope he gets over his injury issues…

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  19. I have a feeling they are treating Santon carefully with a view to him getting fixed up in the summer properly. Just a gut feeling mind 🙂

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  21. wolfie says:
    December 30, 2011 at 13:34

    So because they bought their trophies they don’t count? Mmm..

    The fact is that Roman won’t walk away from Chelsea and the Sheik won’t walk from City either so it’s a pointless argument. Money buys good players (providing they have been scouted correctly) and the poorer teams get fck all.

    But most of all I want to know why we spend less (net) or on a par with the likes of WBA, Fulham, Aston Villa, Stoke, Sunderland, Spurs (without CL football) or Everton when we get 50,000 supporters every home game.

    It’s one of lifes mysteries to me.

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  23. Stuart, your dead right. We should of spent £10 million for Crouch or Ruiz who have brought about 6 goals between them instead of getting Demba just because he was free…

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  25. The business our club has done in the past year has so far left it in less debt and in a better position in the league. Hard to criticise really when we are doing better than expected. If we finish the season in this position having spent next to nothing then how can we demand big fees in the summer? I think we need to sit back, relax and just see what Carr & Pardew deliver in termof results and bodies through the door. We dont need to spend loads to get back into the Uefa Cup. We just need to find the right players, at the right place. If this summer’s signings are anything to go by, then I trust Carr and Pardew to do the same again this summer…

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  28. About Santon, I got the impression from him in one of his appearances that he really has no left foot.

    Raylor, if memory serves, set up a goal with his left the other day, didn’t he? Just a thought.

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  29. MM @ 17 I didnt mention about the players ability , Im just sticking up for Souness for some strange reason 😕 I felt dirty writing that 😆

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  30. dan4toon says:
    December 30, 2011 at 14:20

    Are you for real?

    Nobody is arguing that there are bargains out there, just that NUFC can’t pick them all up or get lucky everytime we go into the transfer market by paying very little for them and expecting them to be good players.

    No club in history has constistantly paid peanuts and got great players.

    I feel I need to be clear here though. I am not advocating going out spending a **** load of money that we don’t have on **** players. I’m not advocating passing on the chance to sign someone just because they’re on a free. I am advocating spending decent big money (if we have it, and I believe we should have it after what’s been brought into the club this year) on the very good players that are available. They are about but we just don’t want to pay the money for them, even though everyone is.

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  32. I think the club has done well with the players that have came in on the ‘cheap’ so far but I just can’t see it last forever.
    But I think sometimes you have to spent money on proven quality with prem experience, like take CB imo we need someone that we are 99% sure that wont need time to settle and hit the ground running.
    As for this kid on trial the more the merrier it means we have more choice on who can make it and who cant.

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  33. Johno Toon says:
    December 30, 2011 at 15:03
    STuart what makes you think we have money in the club? Casue we sold Carrol for 35million?

    Plus money from the sales of Enrique, Nolan, and Routledge. Oh and don’t forget the PL money, the Sky money, the ticket sales from the club with the 3rd highest attendances in the country and other sponsorship money coming in too.

    Now I’m not stupid enough to think that the club doesn’t have any outgoings but if you look at the accounts from last year and the fixed outgoings, they will be pretty similar this year too and we’ve increased our turnover by circa £50m.

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  34. We also brought in a good few players in that time as well Stuart , my own personal opinion is the 35 mil for Carrol has gone covering the cost of relegation , I think there is a bit of that left , which will be the centre back ( i hope ) we bring in Jan. I also hope that come the summer ( isnt always the same with ‘ pro ashley ‘ fans the next window will be where he will splash the cash 🙂 ) that there will be money for 2-3 quality players to come in. But in all honestly that optimism ( or crazieness ) is fading a bit.

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  35. It may be that we limited by turnover rather than cash. What I mean is that if a new player is offered £30kpw which is £1.5mpa then if we are already paying £50mpa in wages then even if we have £10m cash then we can’t buy until we get smith off the books or Llambias can up the turnover.

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  36. Either way, when this club brings in players, they are quality or potential quality.
    Under Shepherd we usually brought in expensive players three quarters of who turned out to not give a stuff or just weren’t worth what we paid.
    I personally don’t want to go down that road again of luring so called top quality mercenaries to the club based on a massive wage offering as a big sweetener.
    This club will bring in the required players and in time we will have everything in place to really push on.

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  38. Agree Premandup , I think Smith ( 60k ) Xisco ( 50k) and Lovenkrands ( 20k ) will all leave the club this summer so I hope that 130k a week off the wage bill will help cover the cost of any new players wages we bring in. Those figures are very rough which I think that they are on in the bible that is Football manager 🙂

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  43. Hi everyone. Look i know Pards has said no striker coming in but does anyone know why they never pursued Nicky Maynard . Word here in Bristol is he will go for 2 or 3ml .Thoughts anyone .

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  45. Hi Kim,

    funny, but I JUST looked at this article on the Chronicle which suggests that a striker actually is a possibility. Here’s the quote–emphasis on the final sentences…

    He added: “I don’t think there’s as much a calling for a striker as there was last year.

    “When we lost Andy Carroll we could only bring in Shefki (Kuqi) really as an emergency striker.

    “We’re not in that position this year and we’ll have to wait and see what the window brings up. But at the moment, that’s where we’re at.”

    http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/newcastle-united/nufc-news/2011/12/29/pardew-why-i-won-t-sign-a-striker-for-nufc-72703-30026967/2/#ixzz1i2Ktl0cR

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  46. Also, I just remembered something: I’m one of those people who never really remembers dreams, but for some reason this morning, I dreamed that Steven Taylor had committed suicide.

    As I said, I never remember dreams and I put no credence in them as forecasters or whatever other hocus-pocus, but the superstitious minded might have some explanation to play with for this…

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  48. Why not resurrect the Papiss Cisse deal we tried this time last year? He’s still scoring lots of goals for ****-poor Freiburg in Germany. He’s got nine goals for them and they are dead last in the table.

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  52. I’m afraid of exactly that, Hitman. I think Carroll’s due for a big game. Or at least a goal… and he knows Colo and Williamson all too well.

    Just realized it’s likely to be Obertan vs. Jose Enrique tonight too. Tasty… Come on Obertan!

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  54. Fans should own the club- Thanks for the link/ info , interesting that. My god what a strange dream ,i reckon it’s the Speed thing still playing on your mind . Dreams have a funny way of telling us what needs sorting out in life. On the other hand maybe it just means you think having no back up for Saylor is suicidal 😕

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  55. Cannot see Liverpool just writing off over £20m in 12 months tbh. Can see them making a move for Colo though, Definately. That’s why it’s a major concern that he hasn’t signed his new contract and as he’s one of the biggest earners don’t be surprised if he did go to Liverpool and we brought a defender in. Just one mind, so we’d be no better off on the pitch, just on the balance sheet as per usual.

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  56. Yeah, Kim, I also thought “If I were one of these dream-interpreting quacks, I’d say Taylor killed himself in my dream because Colo and Willo got smashed by Carroll for a hat trick and he could not live with the shame.”

    So maybe it’s a prediction of sorts, connected to Hitman’s comment and all of our fears that Tarzan is resurrected and beasts Willo & Colo tonight.

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  57. The thing with Carroll is do Pool now have a player who doesn’t really wanna be there, i kinda think they do you know. He always looks a lost soul to me a real fish outta water . Would i want him back probably yes if i’m honest.

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  62. KIMTOON
    December 30, 2011 at 17:34
    Is Louise Taylors article based on any true facts do you know ?

    -It would be a first if it was :mrgreen:

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  65. Toonsy – I don’t particularly mind us offering these young lads a trial, and the opportunity of a dream move for them. It costs nowt to trial them and little to no fee really.
    The issue I have and probably the reason for some negativity is simply that I feel we are clearly short of first team players and feel a better use of our energy would be addressing that matter. This crack about players costing too much in Jan is bollocks. They can’t compare every transfer to the Carroll one, and I’m sorry but I can’t see any club knocking £5m off the asking price just coz it’s the summer.
    We need players in NOW and with a short list of 5-6 CFs and CBs I find it hard to believe that they can’t get one of each for a reasonable fee. Like I say, if a club set it’s fee now I don’t see it dropping drastically.
    It’s about priorities, these young lads may have a future with Newcastle but it’s players for now that we should be reading about

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  66. Ha Ha Newkie like that one. Am i the only one who thinks we might get something out the game tonight , oh ye of little faith .

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  68. I honestly don’t think we’re that far off liverpool as a squad. I still can’t quite understand how they have such a good defence, I’ve never rated Skrtel or Agger and Carragher is past it, and Johnson is just *****. Obviously Reina and Enrique are great but I really do think Demba should grab a goal.

    One of my mates is even putting 20 quid on us 😀

    I feel more confident than I ever have in the last five years of getting something….but I’m not quite sure. I felt confident about West Brom and Swansea as well, and I can see Carroll scoring against us 😕

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  73. Mick Lowes at the ground has said Ba is a major doubt with his knee, waiting to hear the team news, he is also saying that there is a change up front which doesnt involve Best and that Shola will play if Ba doesnt make it.

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