Captain Colo set to resume contract talks with NUFC

Contract talks with Club Captain Fabricio Coloccini are set to resume shortly, according to Alan Pardew.

The curly haired Argentinian has about 15 months left on his current deal so the importance of a new deal being sorted is becoming paramount. Time is of the essence.

Fabricio Coloccini is the first name on the teamsheet for me. He is an outstanding defender and leads by example rather than by shouting and balling. He makes playing the game look effortless and would cost a fortune to replace which is why getting the 29-year-old (soon to be 30-year-old) defender to sign a new deal would be a good move. Fortunately Alan Pardew sees it the same way.

"The priority for me is Coloccini's new contract and one or two others. We are focused on that because we want to keep our best players. He is our captain and I want to keep him, and negotiations are due to restart shortly," Pardew told the Daily Mail.

However there is a double-edged sword. We are still vulnerable to big money bids for our players, although Pardew insists that with the players we have at our disposal these days the opportunity to achieve something at Newcastle and alleviate the need for players to move on is becoming greater.

"We are still vulnerable to the Champions' League clubs and we still need to balance the books, therefore even in this window, I am on my guard. I see us keeping the same squad together but there is no guarantee," he said.

"You look at us now with the signing of Cisse, and players like Cabaye and Santon, we are suddenly becoming a threat. If we can keep everyone fit and with eight games to go, keep ourselves in and around sixth or seventh we will have less pressure on ourselves than the others and then we can be dangerous. But we have to get ourselves in that position and to get us there we need a big squad."

He is right of course. We are vulnerable to Champions League clubs. Make no bones about it, if a Champions League club comes in for one of our players he will more than likely want to at least consider it. Yes money plays a part, but so does the level of competition of offer at any prospective new club as well as the ambition of the player.

The only way that can be stopped is by at least mounting a challenge for a Champions League spot. Whisper it quietly, but isn't that what Alan Pardew was hinting at towards the end of his statement?

To do that tough we need to keep on doing what we're doing in terms of player recruitment, and then we need to keep hold of key players like Coloccini. Hopefully a deal can be agreed between the player and club as losing Colo would set us back a while in our quest for Europe.

Hopefully it won't come to that though...