Could Blaise Matuidi be the sweetener after Nolan’s departure?
Posted on June 16th, 2011 | 33 Comments |
Well, it was quite a day yesterday wasn’t it? What with the big news that Kevin Nolan is most likely on his way to West Ham, the implications of which I’ll talk about in a later post.
Fortunately a change in medication meant I slept through a lot of yesterday but it was a bit of a shock to the system to wake up and find that our Captain’s off and a Mount Etna of fan opinion has ensued as a result.
There were rumblings in the French press yesterday – before the Nolan news broke – about Newcastle’s potential interest in Blaise Matuidi, a 24 year-old Angolan-French midfielder who currently plays for Saint-Étienne.
Matuidi is apparently a defensive midfielder and ‘deep-lying playmaker’ who has played all his football in France, first for Troyes and then for Saint-Étienne, scoring 7 goals in 209 appearances. He also has three senior caps for France.
The rumblings of Toon interest have intensified today and Saint-Étienne would apparently ‘support’ the idea of Matuidi going to Newcastle rather than to another French club against whom Saint-Étienne would be directly competing next season.
Saint-Étienne actually issued a statement about Matuidi yesterday, which goes something like this (apologies for the disjointed stuff returned by Google Translate):
Contrary to what the daily L’Equipe published in its edition of Tuesday, June 14, the direction of the ASSE would like to confirm that the correct price for Blaise Matuidi is 15 million euros (13 million euros + 2 million bonus farm). The ASSE notes that Blaise Matuidi is the only player of the workforce to benefit from a release.
In addition, club officials have had the unpleasant surprise to hear on the channel Infosport the following message:
“Blaise Matuidi does not know much about the identity of his new club. But it is close to Newcastle. The English track particularly like the President of the Executive, Roland Romeyer, requiring 15 million to address cash flow problems.”
To date, the ASSE has had no contact with the English club and said that its finances are doing well. Indeed, the club has not had to use half the bank loans that it receives.
Finally, the ASSE would recall that on the transfer market, the club management will observe the utmost discretion. Indeed, confidentiality is one of the rules for success in this area.
ASSE is not French for bottom or anything, it just means Association Sportive de Saint-Étienne. That bit in the middle about Newcastle is actually “Mais, il se rapprocherait de Newcastle” and the verb ‘rapprocher’ can either mean to bring closer or to re-approach.
€15m (£13.1m) would blow Ashley’s transfer record but my gut-instinct is that this is one of the bits of transfer speculation that’s likely to be true.
£13 million for a defensive midfielder?
Sorry Hugh, can’t see it myself-but Ashley’s trademark is doing things nobody else would (no matter how much it pi55es the rest of us off)so you never know. We need to start spending though and stop selling!!!