Newcastle allegedly interested in Ryad Boudebouz (+ video)
Posted on June 5th, 2011 | 13 Comments |
The latest on the rumour-mill is that we’re interested in Ryad Boudebouz who I will confess to never having heard of before. He’s a midfielder who currently plays for FC Sochaux-Montbéliard in France’s Ligue 1.
He has 7 full caps for Algeria, switching his allegiance to them after playing his youth internationals for France. He’s 21 years-old, 5ft 9in high and has scored 14 goals in 94 appearances for Sochaux, but was particularly good this season with 8 goals and 7 assists in 38 games.
Allegedly Graham Carr has been lining Boudebouz up as a potential replacement for Joey Barton on the right of midfield.
The player has also attracted interest from Saint-Etienne, Lyons and Liverpool, but the French press speculates that Marseilles lead the chase with the club’s Sporting Director Jose Anigo supposedly due to meet the player very soon.
About a year ago Arsene Wenger was singing his praises, saying:
“There are some good individuals in the Algeria team and I think they will get through the group with England.
“I know the youngster Ryad Boudebouz, who is a very good player.”
Rightly or wrongly, I tend to trust speculation from the foreign press a bit more than speculation from our own rags, although bear in mind it is just speculation about our potential interest in the player.
I generally like to try and include a video of potential transfer targets, so here’s a montage of Boudebouz’ skills:
woah!if we go on adding french players the way we’re being linked with them we might end up being more french than arsenal!nonetheless,as long as the team does well.
seems like all the players we seem to be linked with are replacements for our established stars.i hope they end up being worthy additions to the squad.
oh,and did anyone see how well tim krul did against Brazil of all teams on his first ever international cap?well done to him.seems he could end up being our number one for a long time to come.