Newcastle should swoop for free agent Gai Assulin, but probably won’t!
Posted on July 2nd, 2010 | 128 Comments |
Now I know what you’re thinking, and before I get the deluded tag thrown around at me just hear me out. This is the kind of player that Newcastle should be looking at if they are to ensure their new transfer policy is to work, well in my opinion anyway. In fact it is the kind of player that the club have hinted that they themselves will be looking at with regard to fitting in with this new transfer blueprint, that blueprint being to buy players who won’t depreciate in value whilst they are here.
At only 19-years old and rated highly throughout Europe despite making only a handful of appearances for Barcelona, Assulin would not command a fantastic wage, which would be another tick in the ‘pro’ box from the clubs perspective. In the ‘con’ box however, would be some significant interest from a lot of other clubs for the player. But I guess that is a moot point as I very much doubt we would be going in for him, despite the fact that he ticks all the boxes, from a business perspective anyway. But why?
Well first off, I guess everyone has a differing opinion. Just because I think he would be a fantastic signing doesn’t mean that anyone else will. The same can be applied to managers, and Hughton might just not be interested in the player as opposed to another manger who may want him.
Another factor, which is kind of linked in to the opinion bit above, is whether or not he plays in a position we need. Assulin plays wide right, or behind the striker as an attacking midfielder, so de we need one of them? Well in my opinion, yes we do, and he would cover two positions.
Then there is the question of are we a big enough draw for the player? Probably not, but why not at least enquire? What is the worst that can happen? The player will say no, and we move on. At least it would show some tentative signs that we have an exciting future in store, well for at least a few seasons until the player gets sold for profit!
At the end of the day, Assulin is the kind of player I would like us to be interested in – young, exciting players. I will put this bit in bold for clarification, but there is no indication from anywhere that we are even interested in the player, this is just my opinion.
So this is all speculation, in fact it’s not even that in fairness. It is purely something I would like to see happen. Needless to say that I doubt it will, despite it making so much sense on so many levels.
What d’ya reckon?
I went to Barcelona for El Classico back in December and went to watch Barca’s youth team play in the afternoon, when I seen this guy was playing I was quite excited as I’d heard a lot about him.
I wasn’t impressed though, He seemed very lazy and lost the ball quite often, I’m not surprised Barcelona are releasing him.