Newcastle set to land Ligue 2 midfielder

toonsy

Amalfitano in action for Reims
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!

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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120 thoughts on “Newcastle set to land Ligue 2 midfielder”

  2. Don’t woory I doubt anyone on here knows anything about the lad either 😉
    Still, it’s always nice to see a new player arrive and assuming Carr recommended him, I’m all for it.

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  7. If this signing is down to Carr then I’m more than happy to give the lad a chance. I do hope he isn’t a replacement for Guthrie, though.

    Oh and before I forget, I am now active among the wonderful world of Twitter! My username is ‘Wannabe_Pundit’, so get following lads and lasses!

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  8. Woah, sign up his teammate #7 – he’s constantly running riot in those videos.

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  9. tbh, if we sell guthrie for between 4 and 6 million pounds I’ll be ok with it. Reckon he’s a good player but wouldn’t be happy with being on the bench all the time as thats where he’d be as he isn’t good enough for the team we’re trying to create. Have to say though Carr should prob put midfielders to the side (unless they’re young holding mids or wingers) and focus more on young promising defenders both here and abroad, also I young striker that could be brought in as back-up, like rhodes or rodrigez since he’s free in the summer.

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  10. would love for this guy to turn out to be another cabaye that we got for free without any other club in Europe realising he existed. :mrgreen: In carr we trust

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  12. Andymag. I sort of agree with Guthrie considering we have Abeid, Gosling, and Vuckic coming through. But I think his contract expires this summer so we wouldn’t be able to sell him.

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  13. Wenger “Who the hell’s this Cabaye?” [he says red faced]
    Arsenal Scouts(AS) “He was a Lille midfielder” [they say in a mumbled voice]
    Wenger “Why didn’t we get him?” [voice raised]
    AS “We thought he was going to Real Madrid” [they say 😥 ing]
    Wenger “IDIOTS!”
    now replace Cabaye with Amalfitano, Lille with Riems, and “thought he was going to RM” with “didn’t realise he existed”. :mrgreen:

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  14. MDS – ****, forgot. ah that sucks, we should have sold him in jan to get some money, weren’t villa interested?

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  15. just looked at our fixtures on the bbc website and noticed that we’ve got like 6 or 7 games on tv from now till the end of the season. :mrgreen:

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  16. Not sure I saw Guthrie linked with anyone in January- but then again I usually spend transfer windows hiding beneath the bed covers in terror

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  17. MDS
    being ignorant I sit in front of the computer screen waiting for us to sign some messiah, like messi or hesky 😥

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  20. i see pardew’s been asked about the name change. its not fair on him that journalists would ask that cus if he says hes against it MA won’t be happy and he could get the sack, and if he says hes for it or he doesn’t care then he’ll have the fans against him 😕

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  21. That’s what happens when your a point from fourth this late in the season. Does that mean more TV money for the club?

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  22. toonsy
    aye i looked and they’re all one after the other 😯 we’ll get alot of attention if we do well as he majority of the games are winable if not all. 😎

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  24. March 2012
    Newcastle
    V
    Sunderland Sun 4 Mar 12:00

    Arsenal
    V
    Newcastle Mon 12 Mar 20:00

    Newcastle
    V
    Norwich Sun 18 Mar 16:00

    West Brom
    V
    Newcastle Sun 25 Mar 16:00

    April 2012
    Newcastle
    V
    Liverpool Sun 1 Apr 13:30

    Swansea
    V
    Newcastle Fri 6 Apr 16:30 😯

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  25. MDS
    i thought he did well, but you could tell he was uncomfortable with it, trying to direct the conversation to how the team was doing, saying he was gunna put his strongest team out (meaning no ben arfa).

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  26. Anyone else hear abeid might get loaned out to the dons? Could be sending in beauties to B.Sharp, would good practice for crosses/through-balls to the dembas. Wonder if they’ll play him AM, DM or just CM. Personally like him to be trained to play that holding-midfield role as a back-up for toto.

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  29. anyone reckon the academy expansion radius (where they can scout academy players) will expand to scotland ❓ I can literally play anywhere (not saying I’m good anywhere), prefer either defence or holding-mid though as I’m quite good at tackling.

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  31. evilfranky
    thought they were just given the money at the start of the season and the tv companies (SKY) organised a schedule from it.

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  32. Andy – I wasn’t sure to be fair, but assumed that a set amount of matches were given per team then each team gets the same TV money. Put was under the impression any matches over and above what you normally get would entitle the club to additional funds???

    Really dunno, but we have been on the TV a LOT this season 😆

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  33. Toonsy this TV money thing looks like a good article idea 😉

    I thought I read somewhere that clubs get about 500K for each Sky match broadcasted live in the UK. Don’t quote me on that though. I don’t know hoe they do it for ESPN or international broadcasts. I have to say this season is the most we have ever been televised in the U.S. I assume the same can be said for other countries.

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  34. Here is an article I found- looks like the answer is yes- more live telecasts in the UK equals more money.

    ‘The Premier League distributes TV rights money based partly on performance, partly via equal shares of TV income, and partly on the number of times a club’s matches are screened live on domestic television.”

    “Facility fees of £582,000 are paid to a club every time they play in a live TV match – with a minimum income of £5.82m even if a club has been involved in fewer than 10 live games.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/24/manchester-united-premier-league-tv

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  36. I wouldn’t say no to the guy but I don’t really see where he will fit in or that we need him, and I would hope the club are treating the defence as priority

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  37. Andy/mds/franky. They probably won’t announce the last few weeks games for a while either. So if we’re still in the hunt for CL there’ll e more. City will surely be televised as they could clinch the title. Chelsea most likely too and maybe everton depending on where we are. Not sure what our other fixtures are off the top of my head

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  38. MDS @ 33, I agree with that. It’s been a real nice change of pace being able to watch the games on my TV and from the comfort of my couch vs. huddled over a laptop watching on a shady weblink.

    Heck, it was really nice early on, when they were on ESPN Hi-Def as well. Long may it continue.

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  39. NORCAL- do you subscribe to foxsoccer.tv? It’s pretty afffordable and the streams are usually pretty good. They’ve been on there every league match that they haven’t been on TV. This season, I’ve only had to go the dodgy stream route for Cup matches.

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  41. My initial thought on this one was surely if he’s that good he’d be a Marseille with his brother rather than playing for a ligue 2 team?! 😯 😕

    But if this is another Carr gem then get him in. I can’t imagine him costing a fortune either.

    I know F all about this kid to be honest but the fact that this shows we are busy trying to get things in place for next season is a great sign for me.

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  42. Sharpy. Pre-contract to arrive in the summer I believe. Maybe there’ll be some compensation for training him but nothing major

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  43. @Norcal

    It’s nice watching the games in the pub with a pint. 😆 Every game is on now, home and away.

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  45. ANDYMAG sorry but would just like to ask are you the guy on org known as the same,its just you seem a decent chap on here,where as the one on org well errrrr 😕

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  46. @AndyMag

    If I’m ever away, I buy a universal tv remote control and go to the nearest bar where they are showing their local team on the foreign channels.

    After sneakily turning over to the Toon game over and over again, the locals get sick and just end up watching it . 😛

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  49. evening all..

    troy that’s genius, has to be done in the local, big Man Utd pub, might just keep switching matches over to womens golf or cricket to **** them off 😆

    toonsy.. new article in drafts for you mate, related to this one, tagged and ready to go whenever you need it 😉

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  55. Andy I posted this on the NUWFC article earlier but don’t think you saw.

    Zoë Vicarage
    February 23, 2012 at 18:52

    Thanks for all the comments about this article lads, really means a lot

    @ChrisG, the clubs agreed a deal a few years ago for the women’s team to be able to use the Newcastle name. Other than that they have no sponsorship from the club and have rely to on fundraisers and donations throughout the season.

    @AndyMag, I live far away from the Toon so can’t play at the mo but I have been offered the opportunity when I go to Uni this summer

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  56. zoe
    cheers for reposting, hadn’t seen it. Shame that the club doesn’t support the women’s team at all. Good luck in getting into the team, sure we’ll all be monitering how the teams doing if you get in. :mrgreen:

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  58. Dub – Really? 😯

    I was shocked with the amount of typos there was in it. Embarrased to say it was mine 😆

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  59. Andy, no worries. Yeah it is a big shame, hopefully in the near future they might be able to work something out. Thank you very much! I’m sure you will be more interested if I get in 😆

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  60. Toonsy at 51. LOL I should have known better…

    By my caluclations, that would mean if we finish 6th and have 5 more matches televised we would bring in an extrat +6M for the season tahn last year. I know it doesn’t sound like much but that would get you an extra year of Collo on his current wages plus a 30K a week increase for Ba for a year

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  61. Andy, the women play their home games at the University of Northumbria’s Coach Lane Campus in Newcastle.

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  62. zoe
    you know it 😉 😆
    are the majority of the team at uni then? If so then they’re more intelligent than most professional footballers 😯 😆 :mrgreen:

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  66. Andy, a lot of them are at uni I think, some might not be. Seem like one big family from what I have gathered via twitter. Yeah most of them are doing jobs as well. The women’s game isn’t professional like the men’s is

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  69. MDS aye its a name that sticks in the mind :evil:.
    ime happy for any decent players comeing to the toon,hope they are working just as hard on defenders 😀

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  70. Toonsy can’t say I read through it. Seemed familiar, probably read it at the time. Any idea how the sites doing these days? Batty et al still frequenting to stir up trouble?

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  71. Dub- I venture to guess not well. Someone posted on here that they only had something like 20 comments on transfer deadline day 😯

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  74. 20 😯 can’t say he didn’t bring it on himself but was a good blog at the time all the same.
    As I’m sure anyone’s figured out I meant .org 😳 Must be over two years for this site now 😯 time flies. Keep up the good work guys

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