News in the Daily Mirror today that Jimmy Bullard wants a £2M pay-off from Hull City.
Jimmy Bullard – Newcastle interested?
Hull are in the same position Newcastle were in last summer, with their wage bill just far too high to be sustainable without Premiership TV money.
And of course their biggest wage earner is Jimmy Bullard, who has a contract worth around £50K/week, which he signed in January, 2009, and there are still three years of the contract left.
But of course that deal was hardly good for Hull, as Jimmy sustained another terrible knee injury, shortly after singing the contract, and he ended up with just 15 appearances with 5 goals for the club.
When push came to shove, Jimmy couldn’t produce the goods for Hull, and they were relegated.
That’s not unlike another overpaid player – Michael Owen – who couldn’t produce when it really mattered for Newcastle when they were relegated a year ago.
Hull are trying to offload Bullard to Celtic, and the new news today is that Jimmy would take a £2M pay-off on his contract – as long as he was then available as a free agent to join Celtic or Newcastle.
That’s essentially ending his contract at Hull for £2M.
Our interest in the story is that the Mirror is stating he would then be available to join one of the two clubs interested in the player, Celtic or Newcastle.
But Jimmy is not the type of player Newcastle need, and we already have some decent central midfielders in Smith, Nolan, Barton and Guthrie and he would hardly add much to the Newcastle squad.
But the Mirror has tagged Newcastle along with Celtic as clubs being interested in the player for several weeks now.
It seems it doesn’t much matter that Newcastle are definitely not interested in the 31 year-old.
It’s now looking almost certain that Newcastle will not bring anybody over 30 into the squad this summer, and that’s true for three players we know of, who are currently available - Bullard, Sol Campbell and former Magpies right back Habib Beye.
Comments welcome.
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13 responses so far ↓
1 magpie4ever // Jun 7, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Dont think we’ll sign him & to be honest I don’t think I’d want him. A few friends in Hull inform me the bloke is barred from about 6 pubs down there for getting into trouble…not what we need to be honest.
2 Solaidback // Jun 7, 2010 at 11:35 AM
It doesn’t matter how many time we say we’re not buying/getting anyone over the age of 26, the press still link us to all these hasbeens who’ll not come to the club…
Can’t they get it into their thick head or do we have to have it translated into gibberish for them to understand, a bit like the rest of the gibberish they post about the TOON…
3 sirjasontoon // Jun 7, 2010 at 11:40 AM
No thanks Jimmy-Stay where you are and hopefully bankrupt Hull.
4 MarkO // Jun 7, 2010 at 11:43 AM
All these players are free agents in the summer would be much more interested in them than Bullard:
Ashkan Dejagah–23
Gonzalo Castro–25
Ludovic Baal–24
Abdelhamid El Kaoutari–20
Mark Bresciano–30
Rodrigo Taddei–30
Eyong Enoh–24
Simon Vukcevic–24
Tamir Cohen–26
5 lesh // Jun 7, 2010 at 11:52 AM
MAy be missing something here, but why the connection between Bullard trying to squeeze £2m from Hull as settlement of his outstanding £3m worth of contract and joining Newcastle United?
As far as I can see, Bullard’s a liability to Hull at the moment, they’re skint and he knows they want rid of him.
But, no club in its right maind would pay a fee for an injury-prone over the hill, highly paid player would they. Or would we??
Bullard’s looking for a way out of Hull, as are Hull and whether he comes to Newcastle United or not is in the hands of CH et al.
I hope not!
6 Ericles // Jun 7, 2010 at 12:02 PM
A Mirror story – beware! Let them buy him if he is that good at making stories up.
7 Toonmania // Jun 7, 2010 at 12:20 PM
not PL quality leave well alone
8 toonfan // Jun 7, 2010 at 12:39 PM
In reply to lesh above—
If you look at the post further up it states bullard is on 50k a week and has 3 years left on his contract which my calculations make a total of 7.8million hull have to pay for the remainder. so basically hes saying look ill cancel my contract for 2m pay off and that way it will save the club a further 5.8 in the near future. shame owen didnt do the same or we had a clause in his contract saying if we get relegated he had to give so much of his 16m in wages back to the club lol
9 fongct // Jun 7, 2010 at 12:43 PM
it is a different situation now
he is old, but he is available for free now
he is injury prone, so if he does want to play in PL, then we can offer him a pay as he plays deal, like Owen with Manutd
Celtic cant afford high wages, so do we, so if he wants to play in PL, then he has a accept a lower wages contract
so if he is available for free, we can offer him a contract that is on our terms, but then, I think a few PL clubs are willing to take a gamble on him
10 SirAlan // Jun 7, 2010 at 12:44 PM
Why would NEWCSATLE want “Bullard” ??? he’s average at best
11 StuW // Jun 7, 2010 at 3:20 PM
I can see why people don’t want to see Bullard at the club, but I can also see why he is being linked with us. He is a 100% tryer, will play the full 90 minutes at full throttle(unless he breaks a leg).
12 G // Jun 7, 2010 at 3:32 PM
I think Mick Hucknal is well past his sell by date personnaly.
13 Geordie_Pants // Jun 7, 2010 at 5:38 PM
No thanks!
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