Value for money?

toonsy

More of the same please!
Medical passed, ink on the contract dry, smile frozen in history with the first picture of the summer of a new lad holding up an equally new Newcastle shirt.

Yep, Yohan Cabaye has officially joined Newcastle and kicks off what will hopefully be a very decisive summer. Decisive for a manager poised to put his stamp on the club. Decisive for a much vilified owner looking to gain some support. Decisive for NUFC fans who are awaiting to see just what the ambition of the club is in the transfer market.

Cabaye has been loyal too Lille and that loyalty has seen him raise the French league tittle this past season. He’s a well respected player in France and should become a good member of Newcastle and represent the club well. He’s becoming a regular player for the French national side and is a very steady footballer.

It’s a good deal for the club and will add quality whilst saving funds for further reinforcements. Some may feel that he is a type of player that isn’t really a “need” in our squad, but I disagree and feel that the powers that be know exactly what need they are filling.

Which I guess brings us onto the rest of the transfer window. With only a few million spent it means that we still have a lot of powder kept dry that we can perhaps use at a later date. In fact with the signing of Cabaye you could argue that keeping our money made is a sound decision. I mean would anyone complain if we got another three or four players of Cabaye’s quality for the same kind of fee?

It’s this kind of careful approach that is hopefully going to set us up for a good season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m acutely aware that you generally pay for what you get, but it doesn’t mean that the club shouldn’t try and buck the trend like they’ve managed to do with Hatem Ben Arfa, Cheik Tiote, Yohan Cabaye and even Dan Gosling.

It’s about getting the biggest bang for your buck, and I think the Toon are doing that right now. Hopefully it won’t stop there and we can look forward to some more diamonds being unearthed. In fact if we’re careful perhaps we could even stretch to a ready made diamond?

I think the one thing that we can gain from this summer is that the club have put a lot of work into their potential targets. I mean exploiting unknown release clauses like they did with Cabaye and are reportedly doing with Neil Taylor smacks of hard work and careful planning. Sure the critics may point towards them being at the cheaper end of the transfer scale, but Graham Carr and the rest haven’t done bad at getting us some good European players for reasonable fees so perhaps they deserve a bit more trust.

Time will tell of course, but keeping money in the club, or not wasting it unnecessarily, can only be a good thing. Whether that money be used to pay off some debt, pay wages, or pay transfer fees remains to be seen, but all three of those scenarios will benefit the club long term.

Now we need Graham Carr and Alan Pardew to get us some more cheap players of the Cabaye ilk!

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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176 thoughts on “Value for money?”

  2. suppose we only get demba ba as striker

    demba ba 12 games 7 goals
    best 11 games 6 goals
    ameobi 20 games 2 goals
    loven 25 games 6 goals

    who would you choose as first choice

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  7. nickpurvis Nick Purvis
    REPORTS. #WHUFC’s Demba Ba to #NUFC on a free transfer due to clause in his contract, he’s agreed terms and due in for medical next week.

    which he will fail,he hasnt passed one yet 😆

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  9. Hitman…he must have passed a medical at wham?!?

    Simon…good to see Barton towing the party line, I hope he’s not going to have negative affect on the squad next season. I can see him causing some trouble

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  10. Hitman- lol, we’ll see how he does. With newcastle’s injury ratio, I feel like Ba may be a ticking time bomb. Suppose we’ll see. Still wouldn’t be surprised to see us get Gameiro.

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  13. I would go for Ba and Best, Shola can carry the oranges for half time.
    Average joe is a bit of a strtch from joey for a french international and league and cup double winner, a little worried for our places for our friends maybe?
    I welcome whoever comes, and no-one should have any divine right to a place on the pitch, not from deeds past or deeds promised.
    Nobody said it was going to be easy but with the right reinforcements, it will be easier!!!!

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  14. I’m sure Ashley’l get it right with Ba….pay as you play, or summat like that….

    Great signing for nowt if you ask me. Time will show if he can stay fit, but he definitely strengthens the squad.

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  15. Excellent post. It makes me feel a bit more optimistic that we are moving in the right direction despite the issues around Nolan and Barton.

    Hopefully the players we sign will settle quickly and hit the ground running. If we get N’Zogbia back we will have quite a large French-speaking contingent. I’ll miss us having a largely English spine but perhaps that is a luxury we presently cannot afford.

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  16. re the last thread, I agree the whole “Twenty goals a season is a must!” is a bit mental really….If you’re playing in europe and pushing in both cups and your main striker gets 20 then yeah that’s fair enough, but any more outside of that is very very tough. Bent managed it at the scum because he literally scored all of their goals, do people want someone to sit there and knock away 20 but make no chances themselves? Or score 10-15 and make plenty of chances for the rest of the team…

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  18. DJG.. dr dekka.. funny…
    The Ba bloke has a a knackered knee so we need to be mega careful and have some sort of get out clause inserted into his contract cos we cant have this bloke sitting around for four years just picking up money. we have had far too much of that and i hate the greedy twats. He is a risk and with our inury record we seem to have brock lesnar and junior dos santos as trainers ffs.
    If we can get him for free and nail his money down etc etc and cover all bases regarding his knackered knees then he has to be worth a punt with those ratios. If not, we can stick with loven and donkey boy ameobi up front as they are prolific also !

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  19. We can be sure that players will be watching events at the toon, and thinking I’d like to have some of that. So much transfer activity so early in the window has probably taken the majority of toon fans by surprise. Looks good so far, hope it’s not the end though…

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  20. @newkie Precisely 😉 And surely it would be more beneficiary for the goals to be shared between 4 or 5 players such as Cabaye, Nolan, Best etc. Than just one striker knocking them in?

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  21. craig,

    for all their faults, I reckon fat boy and dirty dekka are learning and I would actually trust them 😯 to have a clause in his contract along those lines.

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  22. Craig > If not, we can stick with loven and donkey boy ameobi up front as they are prolific also !
    😆 😆 I always thought of Shola as a prolific faller

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  23. Is it not possible that he had a knee injury & it’s now healed?

    Player gets injured & recovers shock horror 😉

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  24. crai@18…must be a tricky one insurance wise too, I mean apparently the bloke doesn’t pass medicals, but still gets a start. Dr Dekka will have that angle covered too I would imagine.

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  26. Thedimpleboy-exactly…we buy ourselves a bent and he gets injured in the first game-then what does your team do? Relegation? Much better to have well oiled unit that can attack and score goals collectively, it means you are safer from injury, it means players can’t be marked out of a game, and hopefully it limits the amount a “big team” can come in for your “big name” striker.

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  27. “LuaLua told The Argus: “Alan Pardew hasn’t said anything to me and I don’t expect him to say anything, because I’ve been injured.

    “We are back in training on July 5. Hopefully by then I will be a Brighton player.”

    According to sky? 😯 Still prefer to see if we could loan him out again and see if he could be of use in the future…

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  28. Giimps- think the average Joe line was in reference to himself, Joe Barton.
    Class move by wor Joey

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  29. OH- thinks you gotta let Gameiro go bud. He just doesn’t like rain and cold.

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  33. alreet MM, im good me like. 😆

    Just had a nice rough game of football against some lads on playing field’s.

    It was nice and calm, then he felt need to go in on a challenge he was never going to win, so I let him feel the raft of the next De Jong 😛

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  38. Ye, he was a right cu’nt, got a right stud mark on my ankle.

    I didnt get him back, but i broke his boot 😆

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  40. alreet lads , whats happening wit demba ba?? is he close to coming or is it just rumours??

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  41. Thing that is worth remembering, if the Ba deal happens, is that its something where Ashley’s tight-fistedness would actually benefit the club as the will use it as a reason to negotiate Ba and his hareem of agents down 🙂

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  43. Army – have a look at newsnow mate. Someone who has something to do with West Ham reckons terms are agreed

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  45. Army, its all owa place on twitter mate.

    I think its going to happend like.

    Jonas Cabeye Tiote
    ———-HBA———-
    ——BA——Best—-

    😛 😛 😛

    And im not even dreaming 😆

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  47. Spencer@45…you need to find space for Carlton Cole in that line up mate… 🙄

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  50. Army – I agree, but I’m not unfurling the banners yet as I don’t believe it. If this summer has told us anything its not to believe owt :mrgreen:

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  51. CC? Whats the crack with him then Munich Mag, I dont want him any where near the toon. 😆

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  52. u dont believe we hav ba? i totally understand where your coming from like ……. i thought we had gervinho in the bag 20 times in 2 weeks of the transfer window!! bluddy rumours 😯

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  57. I remember when Newcastle were getting grief over racism due to that incident with Mido, yet if we sign Demba Ba, I think we only have one striker who is white and about 98 who are black.

    Find it funny how things always spin about like that, lol.

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  58. Army – I reckon zoggy wants to come back, and I reckon we’d have him, but with Whelan being a **** and wanting more money off us just because its Ashley I can’t see it mate.

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  59. andrewt
    absolutely mate

    toonsy
    zoggys on fire at the min aswell , would be a mint signing

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  60. FJ – Mido claimed racism, but all that happened was that the Newcastle fans rhymed Mido with paedo and away they went.

    If eminem done that there would be a generation applauding it. What’s the difference? 😆

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  61. I heard we tabled a 11mill bid?

    We put 12mill on the last day of the january window, dont understand why when we needed a striker 😆

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  65. hmmmm,
    is there only me who has concerns about Ba?

    His track record isn’t exactly sparkling, he pisses people off and is a mercenary who is always injured.

    If he is our no.1 striker I am concerned – free or not

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  66. toonsy, I wasn’t saying it was racism, just saying it’s funny how those accusations went about a bit and now our entire strikeforce almost is black. Remember those Mido to Newcastle rumours a year or so ago 😯

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  67. SPENCER- wouldn’t you want Tiote in the middle, seein as that he’s your defensive mid?

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  69. OH- I did it in a rush 😆

    but aye I would, and cabeye, then let jonas run about more free.

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  71. I dont like him at all me like.

    Much rather pav from spuds.

    I said the other day, thing with strikers, their normally good or shyte 😆

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  72. doh….Pardew will do a deal with West Ham to bring Cole to the toon, with Smith or summat going in the other direction…

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  74. see doocey has wrote a thread on BA,saying some radio/st,are saying he has agreed terms 😕

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  75. Am I the only one who finds it strange that any player from a relegated team gets re-signed into the top flight by other teams?

    I mean, unless someone really was trying their best every game like Scott Parker, why would anyone sign Rob Green, Matthew Upson or Carlton Cole?

    Really, they were abysmal and helped relegation more than fight it.

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