Newcastle set to land Ligue 2 midfielder

Newcastle are looking into offering 22-year-old Reims midfielder Romain Amalfitano an opportunity to test himself at Premier League level, if reports in France are to be believed.

French publication L'Equipe claim that Amalfitano has impressed Newcastle scouts and will be offered the chance to sign for Newcastle on pre-contract agreement as his current deal expires at the end of the season.

Amalfitano is primarily an attacking midfielder. He has made 47 appearances for Riems since joining the club in 2010 and has scored six goals along the way. This season he has made 21 appearances in league and cup, scoring three goals and creating three more for his team-mates.

Other than that I don't know a great deal about him. His brother plays for Marseille but beyond that information is scarce so I guess we'll have to wait and see what we may end up getting! Clearly he has impressed the scouting department enough and in fairness to them they haven't done a bad job over the last couple of years so I'll trust their judgement.

However I have managed to find a couple of videos of Amalfitano in action so at least we can get a glimpse of him.

So what have we learned from this? Probably not a lot, but I'm not going to flannel you all off and pretend I know anything about the lad. Quite simply, I don't.

What it does show is that our scouting net is cast far and wide and that we are thorough when it comes to finding players who have a chance of making it in the Premier League. Whether or not they do make it something only time will tell, but at least we're willing to give players a chance, which can only be a good thing in my view.

Now it's up to the player to take that chance!