Maiga - Newcastle United still pressing hard to get a January transfer deal done

Despite landing their main target in the summer to partner Leon Best/ Demba Ba Newcastle United still remain very keen on Modibo Maiga of Sochaux. In fact; they’ve been out to watch him since the window has closed with a plan to lure him to St.James’ Park in January. The very fact that Carr & Pardew are so keen to land the striker must tell you something - the lad must have a lot of potential in English football. Cheik Tioté, Hatem Ben Arfa, Sylvain Marveaux, and Yohan Cabaye were all advised by Graham Carr and they’ve turned out to be very good signings so far. Marveaux was a free transfer, Ben Arfa cost £5m, Tioté £3.5 and the classy Yohan Cabaye as little as £4.3m. If we looked to sell any of these players now, I’d be very surprised if they didn’t gain double in value - perhaps with Hatem an exception. Even Marveaux would go for a few million as is; and he hasn’t even got a full at the team yet.

However, we do need a striker still despite the fine form Demba Ba & Leon Best. It’s clear that Ba is going to be a very big player for Newcastle United this season and has the ability to hit double figures easily. With that said you get that feeling that we still lack up front. Nile Ranger seems to be out in the cold - Lovenkrands is losing his legs whilst Shola Ameobi is just - Shola Ameobi. The Mackem Slayer.

Another forward would add some very healthy competition - but you get the feeling that Maiga would expect to be in the team week in, week out and with a rumoured fee of £8m - it looks like the men in charge of player recruitment think the same.

Maiga went on strike towards the end of the summer to try force a move to Newcastle United but we failed to agree a fee despite a couple of bids.

The Malian is still talking about an impending move away from France and says that Newcastle United are a ‘very good’ team and that  ‘I will not finish my career in Sochaux if I am scoring every week’.

If he does keep scoring every week then I think we’ll have competition for the player come 2012 - with Liverpool earlier in the year being credited with interest in the guy.

What intrigues me is that we are spending a lot of time watching him, and seemingly want to get him over the line as soon as possible.  The very fact that we’re still scouting him despite failing in the summer - I can’t help but think this lad has a serious amount of talent. At the end of the day, I’d trust Graham Carr when it comes to players.

Time can be the only teller of course but it will be interesting to see come January whether we’ll make another attempt to sign the 24 year old striker.

Comments welcome as always 🙂

Comments welcome as always

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