Toon allegedly pursue Swiss striker whilst our Argentinians attract interest elsewhere
Posted on August 11th, 2011 | 21 Comments |
Well, Alan Pardew only has two and a bit days left if he wants to achieve his aim of signing a new striker before the Arsenal game. On which note the Daily Mail has us ‘interested in’ Bayer Leverkusen’s Eren Derdiyok.
They allege that Graham Carr has been watching the striker and that we’re now ‘considering’ a move for him.
The 6ft 3in, 23 year-old, Swiss striker started his senior career at BSC Old Boys where 10 goals in 18 games got him noticed by FC Basel. After moving to Basel he scored 27 goals in 80 games and thusly came to the attention of Bayer Leverkusen. They signed him in 2009 and he has scored 18 goals in 65 games for them, which is not what I’d call prolific. He has also played 33 games for Switzerland scoring 3 goals.
The English media had us ‘interested in’ him back in June 2008 but the rumours failed to materialise into anything back then and I have my doubts as to whether they will now either. Judging by the stats alone, it looks like he’s the sort of player who started out extremely well but has not quite managed to maintain the scoring level that originally got him noticed.
Assuming Graham Carr really is scouting him as the Mail suggests, it could come down to whether or not Carr thinks his recent less than impressive scoring stats can be overlooked in favour of ‘unrealised potential’ that can be exploited by Newcastle.
The shocker though is that Derdiyok is estimated to be worth about £8.5m, which seems a bit high in my opinion. Although not as high as the fee quoted for Roman Pavlyuchenko whose £14m price tag allegedly nearly caused Ashley to choke on a passing bacon sarnie as he crossed the Russian off our most wanted list.
On the outgoing front, it seems that our two Argentinians – Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez – are in demand by other clubs.
Further to an article I wrote the other day it seems that Valencia are still interested in Coloccini, although the story seems to be simmering rather than bursting into flames at the moment. There are some reports that a £5m deal for the player could be in the offing but I’m not so sure myself.
And the Mail mentions that Stoke are interested in Jonas. They only mention it in passing though, so maybe there’s little to it.
Right, well I’ll clear off and have a look around the foreign press and see if there’s anything of interest in there.
bit of a blue steel look about him hey!