Pardew Dreams Shattered As Exodus Starts

Alan Pardew's hopes of securing his key players Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Jose Enrique this summer have suffered a further blow.

Skipper Kevin Nolan is understood to have rejected the contract offer currently on the table just weeks after Barton was told he will not be offered a new deal.

Former Bolton player Nolan, who scored 12 Barclays Premier League goals last season, has two years remaining on his current contract, but the breakdown of talks will cause further concern amongst fans still coming to terms with Barton's situation.

Barton's agent Willie McKay says that unless something changes radically in the next 12 months, Barton will leave St James' Park on a free transfer next summer.

With repeated speculation that Liverpool are ready to tempt Spanish full-back Enrique to Anfield, the first few weeks of Pardew's summer have been a disaster.

He said: "We need big names to show the fans we mean business", but he doesn't seem able to keep the top players he already has!

Lorient's Kevin Gameiro, Lille's Gervinho, Reading's Shane Long and former Magpie Charles N'Zogbia, currently at Wigan, are said to be targets.

But three of the four players have said they have bigger clubs after them.

Well for me, I believe Enrique will have a very good offer on the table and if he's stalling on it, then he's obviously just waiting for clubs to show their hand, which ok is fair enough i suppose, but if he decides to go and we bring in some outstanding quality, then i say, see yea Jose, the club marches on, with or without you.
The same goes for Barton and Nolan.
Having said that. In no way do i want them to leave and would be more than happy for their contracts to be sorted out pertaining to their abilities and ages.

The club cannot be shown to be held to ransom like it was before, no matter who the player is, because all that does is attracts the unwanted mercenaries who don't give a tuppeny toss about what the club achieves.

I'm quietly confident that what Alan Pardew loses, will be replaced by equal or better and younger quality and then some.

I'm not one for worrying about who goes out or who comes in until it actually happens to be honest.

As the saying goes. You can offer a dog a bone and it will come running but it will always want another bone and another until you run out of bones and that's when the dog finds it's own bones.



Actually that last bit, I just made up and said it for no reason whatsoever hahahahahaha