The futures bright, the future is Purple! Or is it?

The colour purple Two recent statements from Alan Pardew got me thinking, hence this article.

The first was when he said of the team that played Club Brugge that we were looking at the future of Newcastle United. The other was when he praised four players as being close to the first team. Those being, Shane Ferguson, Gael Bigirimana, Sammy Ameobi and Adam Campbell. So what would our future team look like?

Also there is still a strong call for us to “Show Ambition” and buy to strengthen the team. We all get excited by links to famous names. So I thought I'd construct two teams one based on our current purples, with nobody sold, strengthened with a couple of prestigious buys. My choices. Given that we have made a profit of £36m on player transfers over the last five years (Carroll money not spent debate) which is the second highest in the Premier League. Apparently that proves only Arsenal have shown less ambition than us.

My other team is based on those four players named above together with the younger players we already have. Maximum age 24. Give them a couple of years to mature and throw in a replacement or two if they don't quite make it then we can sell the older purples and become completely ambition free. I take it from this that debt = ambition.

Anyway lets look at the squad we have and see what sort of teams we could be fielding in a year or three.

Well Tim Krul at 24 is still young for a keeper. Hopefully he will be a feature in both teams. Not sure we have adequate cover but that is a different debate.

Full backs are all young. Danny Simpson is oldest at 25, Santon 21; Fergie is also 21. So we could buy Debuchy to strengthen team purple, but Fergie and Santon will do for Kid's R Us.

At centre-back we have a problem. Fabricio Coloccini is 30, Mike Williamson 29, James Perch 27 and Steven Taylor 26. So we are either having to buy or hope that Curtis Good, James Tavernier, Paul Dummett or Remi Streete come through, but they are not close yet. I think we are going to have to buy here either way. M'biwa and Douglas are the names to conjure with.

Defensive midfielders, as well as Cheik Tiote being only 26, we have Vurnon Anita at 23 and Gael Bigirimana at 19. Anita is not playing at anywhere near the level he was last season but he will adapt in time. Also we have been linked with Moussa Sissoko again, another potential purple.

Creatively we have Yohan Cabaye at 26 and Hatem Ben Arfa at 25 with, again hopefully, backup in Dan Gosling 22, Mehdi Abeid 20 or Romain Amalfitano 23.

In attack we have Gabriel Obertan, 21 and Sammy Ameobi at 20 out wide with Papiss Cisse and Demba Ba both 27 in the middle. Then we have Adam Campbell who is only 17 with Haris Vuckic, injured again, aged just 20.

And I haven't mentioned Ryan Taylor, Sylvain Marveaux or Shola Ameobi.

So team purple might look something like this:

Tim Krul, Mathieu Debuchey, Steven Taylor, Fabricio Colocinni, Davide Santon, Moussa Sissoko, Cheik Tiote, Yohan Cabaye, Hatem Ben Arfa, Papiss Cisse, Demba Ba.

Whereas Kids'R Us, which is based on players aged 24 or under:

Tim Krul, Davide Santon, ??, ??, Shane Ferguson, Gael Bigirimana, Vurnon Anita, Dan Gosling, Gabriel Obertan, Adam Campbell, Sammy Ameobi.

Ok slightly different formations but that's not the point. The question is do we try to buy a trophy or give the kids a chance and sell the purples for a profit as and when we can?

Your thoughts please...