Newcastle United are said to have received a formal bid for their Nigerian striker Obafemi Martins, although the identity of the club is not yet known.
Oba Martins - mystery club has put in bid?
The Nigeria international is on around £60K a week, and is one of the 9 players Newcastle are looking to offload to ease their financial burden ahead of starting life in the Championship on August 8th.
While Martins recently said he wanted to stay on Tyneside, where he has most of his family now live, the Newcastle club will sell him once the first good offer comes in, simply because we just cannot afford those wages.
We have no idea who the bidding club is, but we have to think Oba is one of the few players not to have blotted their copy book on Tyneside last season, and is still a very good player.
Personally we’d like to see the lad stay and link up with Andy Carroll and/or Nile Ranger up front, because we think Oba could get a lot of goals for the side, alongside one of the tall young strikers we have at the club.
And we know Oba is dedicated to the Newcastle club, especially if Alan Shearer is manager, and is loved by the Newcastle faithful.
The only hope we would have of keeping Oba is if the new owners agree to take a hit this season, and keep some of our high wage earners in the hope we will get immediate promotion back to the Premier League.
That’s a possibility, although an unlikely one.
Comments welcome.
Written from Paris, France.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Harry Krishna // Jul 5, 2009 at 9:32 AM
It’ll be the sand dancer from Hull again….
2 shrews mag // Jul 5, 2009 at 9:35 AM
He would set the championship alight, and a front like of oba and big Andy Carrol would work well.
However I would understand if the owners decided to steady the ship and reduce the wage bill. A bid of over £7m plus the associated reduction in wages would be difficult to turn down.
Time will tell …
3 RyanToon // Jul 5, 2009 at 10:11 AM
martins on his way to everton
4 spiderpig // Jul 5, 2009 at 10:14 AM
oba is over payed and over rated.he scored less goals than michael owen last year,despite playing as many games.yet owen got slaughtered.martins got found out last year,by defenders and had very little confidence in front of goal.he missed some absolute sitters.cant understand why we would keep him on them wages.we could use the money from him to buy a few midfielders with a bit of pace to supply the young guns,ranger and carroll up front
5 del // Jul 5, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Gotta go.
6 punk skunk... // Jul 5, 2009 at 10:52 AM
Good point spiderpig!..
7 TonyGreenSupreme // Jul 5, 2009 at 11:45 AM
spiderpig,
I agree withyour comment’s.
Martins is a popular figure on Tyneside however IMO he has failed to deliver.
1) He appears to have lost a yard of pace.
2) Poor finisher (snatches at chances).
3) Does not read the game.
4) Is unable to form a strike partnership.
5) Totally unreliable.
His wages will demand that he has to be sold.
8 Charlie Toon // Jul 5, 2009 at 2:48 PM
I will be VERY upset to see him go, my favourite Newcastle player by a mile!! Yes I agree he had a poor season but he has been carrying a groin injury all year and don’t forget he lost his mother tragically last year. Still got a huge career in front of him, wish it was with us but can’t see him playing in the championship. Good luck to him! Will always remember that goal at spurs!!!
9 Solaidback // Jul 5, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Well according to the crap-loids, Lyon are the club who’ve placed a bid for his services after selling Karim Benzema’s to Real Madrid for €35m – http://www.newcastle.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=160055
They also say that Lyon want Colocini too.. YES!!! so if the give us €10m for Martins & €8m for Colocini, that would be very nice for us & it will save us around £140k a week in wages too
10 ian // Jul 6, 2009 at 5:30 PM
I would imagine that there would be more offers if any premiership club seriously thought Newcastle would be stupid enough to sell him.
We need him to get back up and take the pressure off buying a premiership striker for £8-10m next year that would be any good.
Most of the other supporters would love us to sell him, then we would have no teeth at all, not one even half reasonable striker or a midfielder who is in danger of scoring.
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