Newcastle Bid For Welsh International Defender

The early news today is that Newcastle have now lodged a formal bid for 22 year-old Welsh defender Neil Taylor.

And since Newcastle somehow found out he has a £1M release clause in his contract, we assume that Newcastle will be bidding £1M, and his club Swansea will have to accept the offer.

All that would appear to remain is that Newcastle agree compensation with the 22 year-old, who was said to be one of the most improved players in the Championship last season, after moving to Swansea from Wrexham.

Neil can also play on the left side of midfield, and no doubt Newcastle will be hoping he can keep improving in the Premier League, although it’s still a risk to take – but not too big a risk at £1M.

Taylor made 32 appearances last season as Swansea won promotion to the Premier League for the first time on their history, and they are the first Welsh club ever to reach the Premier League.

The news is official because the newly promoted Swansea club have confirmed an offer has been made for their left back, and Swans chairman Huw Jenkins said on the club’s website today:

“We have received a proposal from Newcastle regarding Neil,” “But the proposal has not been accepted or rejected at this stage.”

“We have received a number of enquiries from different clubs for Neil’s services and, like all bids we receive for any of our players, we will be talking it over with him when he returns from a break next week.”

“Neil is a player we brought to the club this season from the Conference with Wrexham with a view to him progressing and developing with us over a number of years.”

“The last thing on our mind was to sell anyone over the summer.”

As we said yesterday, if Swansea didn’t want to lose the player, why did they allow a £1M release clause in his contract?

We have to hope that Newcastle move quickly, since other clubs will now have been alerted to the release clause, although it looks like Neil is out until next week..

He started his career at Manchester City before moving to Wrexham, his home town club in 2004, and he made 85 appearances over three years for the Welsh side.

Neil improved immensely last season, and helped the Swans get promoted to the Premier League, and they won promotion by beating Reading 4-2 in the play-off final at Wembley. Neil played 32 times for Swansea last season.

It seems that Newcastle have once again found a decent player for a paltry transfer fee, and if he is anything like Mike Williamson, who was also brought in for £1M, he will do well at Newcastle.

Neil has 3 caps for Wales so far, and he could be the first player officially signed by the club this summer, although Lille’s French International midfielder Yohan Cabaye due to be signed later this week.

We also hope Newcastle can sign 24 year-old winger Gervinho from Lille, but there was a lot of news yesterday that linked the Ivory Coast International with Arsenal.