The Daily Mirror is reporting today that Manchester City are interested in Newcastle’s Cheick Tiote.
Cheick Tiote – Manchester City enter bidding for Ivory Coast star
We had been told that Chelsea still retained the interest they had in the Ivory Coast International last January, and that Manchester United were also interested.
But it will take a mammoth bid for Mike Ashley to sell Cheick Tiote, but of course money-bags City have lots of money to speed, even though the Fair Play Financial Rules are starting to come into effect for European clubs.
That means that in simple terms, at some point in the future, European clubs can only spend what they take in , and the financial books will need to be balanced, but the rules are phased in over three or four years and are having little effect right now.
And the Mirror are reporting that City could be ready to launch a bid north of £25M for Tote, who joined Newcastle 18 months ago from FC Twente for £3.5M.
The report is that City will send out scouts to the African tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea to watch some players, and of course Yaya Toure plays in central midfield with Tiote for the Ivory Coast, so they are already used to playing together.
The performance of Tiote last Wednesday night against Manchester United was par excellence, and the 25 year-old will no doubt have caught the eye of a number of top clubs.
Tiote is a huge fan favorite on Tyneside, and he will tell anybody who will listen to him that he loves playing for Newcastle and has no desire to move anywhere, and indeed he was given a new six and a half year contract by the Tyneside club only a year ago, after Chelsea had shown interest in him.
But we heard the same kind of stuff from Andy Carroll last January about not wanting to leave, and if Mike Ashley accepts an offer then Cheick will be on his way.
Manchester City will watch the tournament but if the Ivory Coast do well and Tiote stars, which is hardly unlikely, then it could be that Newcastle get a bid north of £25M in late January and they would probably accept it.
But Newcastle must be ready to replace Tiote with somebody else coming into the club in January, and not be left with egg on their face as they were when Andy Carroll left.
Carroll was sold to Liverpool just hours before the last January transfer window closed, and Newcastle were unable to bring in a replacement.
So basically the club lost their highest goalscorer – 11 goals – last January and then had to make do through the rest of last season.
That cannot happen this time, if the Etihad club come in for Cheick Tiote late in January, which could happen.
But we again expect Mike Ashley to negotiate an excellent deal, such as making City pay cash up front and getting a sell-on clause, and maybe even getting free gas (petrol) for his cars for the rest of his life. 😀
But we think £30M in cash this time around for Cheick Tiote is something that Mike Ashley could not resist.
Comments welcome.
63 comments so far
solano
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:25 AM
Comment #41Catchy..an old fashioned 4-4-2? The kids on here laugh at that – even though it was SBR’s strict belief of how football in England should be played 😉
I would favour Simpson over Raylor (though both limited) and your faith in Marveaux is puzzling, but generally I agree with you because the likelihood of getting in more players is remote.
shanghai fan
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:35 AM
Comment #42Fair play solano on the for sale signs, but I think we both agree there’s 2 factors that are being overlooked in that. Money, buy low sell high. We do that enough times, and honestly I don’t mean this lightly, the sky is the limit.
Also it’s a gradual process, let’s say we get 25 m or whatever for tiote , end up in seventh and we get 4 or so players with the funds. We’ll push on from there. This is already happening. We are in seventh and surely attracting interest among better players more than the year before that and so on. And from a bodies perspective, and I’ve said this before, 4 good transfers will do more for the team than losing 1 exceptional.
So hope u see my point, it’s a gradual climb, and as long as we continue to make money, we can continue to invest and gradually climb. And then maybe the dream of attracting the likes of tevez when we reach the heady heights of the league will come true. I have faith in this.
Its really the opposite of what we used to do. But expensive individuals and always sold at losses.
And before I’m labelled a ma lover or whatever, I’m not. I’m just as shocked at the randomness of some decisions, but in the main I believe the club is going in the right direction (and they are responsible for part of that)
Solaidback
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:40 AM
Comment #43Sorry but it wouldn’t matter who they offer in exchange for Tiote because unless they throw in the players entires worth of wages too, we couldn’t afford any of there players…. so it would have to be £10m + AJ + Onohu + there wages for 4 yrs before we could even think of saying yes.. 🙁
catchy in norway
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:49 AM
Comment #44solano
442 has worked well throughout the years for most club, but its about having the right players, right now i feel like we are close to having a good 442 team
right back
they both have merits to be in there but, for me raylor offers a little more, decent throw inns , good free kicks good corners, can shoot and cross,
marveaux,
from what iv seen im very excited to watching him week out,,
things im unsure of about him, are his tracking back, and his fitness, i HATE having a player that gets first team football but only plays half a season max, ala K dyer , rather not have them im my squad,,
shanghai fan
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:50 AM
Comment #45Btw it would be interesting if we could see how many points a player contributes to a team. Obviously theres 11, but if you were to say when x is in we win more, which is worth say 10 pts a yr.
Then u could really say if keeping tiote is worthwhile or selling him. We all can see he’s amazing and worth 50m (reading this KD :), but the other side of the equation is what we could get in place of him (what those other transfers would be worth in points) and if the latter is more, we’d be less sentimental about it and probably all less angry at the prospect of him going 🙂
Solaidback
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:51 AM
Comment #46Solano – What are the rumours you’ve heard regards the owners then??
As for buyiing cheap, selling high & then buying 4 or 5 players with the money, it’ll never happen… the reason, well if we sold Tiote for £25m, we would only lose 1 wage out the door, so that would only give us space on the wage budget for 1 player soming back into the club, not 4 or 5…. as that would mean 4 or 5 wages increasing the wage bill…
So if we sell anyone, we’ll maybe get 2 players in, sell 2 players maybe get 3 or 4 players in & the rest of the money will go towards paying those extra players wages over the period of their contracts, not on increasing the squad size….
shanghai fan
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:01 AM
Comment #47Solaidback @ 45 depends on the transfer fee and wages in question. If theyre all free, in theory you could buy an infinite no of players (just joking here, as we all know ba was well expensive;)
But I what i mean is the exact number of players, 4, is not the key thing here. 25m is a lot, and if u got a defensive mid for 4-5 million, you have a lot left over (even incl wages)
And I mean in the bigger scheme of things, outside of tiptoe, the squad would get bigger and better
shanghai fan
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:12 AM
Comment #48Actually I take it all back, fans should get irate and angry over tiote. That way management can squeeze an extra few mill out of the deal to make up for the lost goodwill 😉
I can see MA saying “well Kenny, 37m for tiote is a lot, but I’m going to get so much flak from the fans. Call it 40 and we’ve got a deal”
So everyone get angry, do your part, the transfer money is riding on it 🙂
magpie6699
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:21 AM
Comment #49Apart from money, why would Tiote leave? CL football? Yeah, nice if you’re actually playing but if he had a couple of bad games for Citeh like he had for us this season, he’d be replaced in the team by some other £20+ million mercenary and could find himself warming the bench a lot – Andy Carroll anybody? Whereas at Newcastle he must be 3rd name on the teamsheet (after Collo and Timmy).
Solaidback
Jan 8, 2012 at 12:01 PM
Comment #50Tiote wouldn’t leave us for CL footy because he had that option when he was at FC Twente before moving to the Toon, so thats not a pull for him… if he moves, it will be because he’s been offered way more than we are paying him & could ever pay him, same as Carroll… 🙁
shanghai fan @ 47 – Fella, you misunderstood what I was saying, if Tiote goes for £25m, we get that plus his wages off the books, ie 50k/wk or whatever it is…
If you bring in 4 or 5 players, they may well take up the full £25m to buy but we’d only have 50k/wk in wages between them or we’d be increasing the wage bill annually, which is what Ashley doesn’t want to happen, so the £25m for players would have to include their wages, so we may get 2 players in plus wages over 4yrs, so that our annual wage bill doesn’t increase with the extra playing staff 🙂
We’ll never get 4 or 5 players in from what we get from tiote, you can hold me to that 🙁
bills-son
Jan 8, 2012 at 12:04 PM
Comment #51solano – there is no evidence to support your feeder club claim. NONE.
planb
Jan 8, 2012 at 12:05 PM
Comment #52There’ll be no players coming in, the emergence of Ben Arfa yesterday will prove to Ashley that he doesn’t need to spend on a striker and will get by with what we’ve got. Pardew the second rater isn’t trusted with any money, he’s just a little yes man.
MT
Jan 8, 2012 at 12:26 PM
Comment #5325M+John Guidetti+Dedryck Boyata
solano
Jan 8, 2012 at 12:28 PM
Comment #54Shanghai….”it’s a gradual climb” claim. I agree to an extent but you must have a paln to get to the summit. The analogy with Ashley’s plan is that we are at base camp and are frightened to go any further!
In other words, we are happy to consolidate and let others go for the glory. We have all the tools and equipment necessary apart from the leaders.
solano
Jan 8, 2012 at 12:32 PM
Comment #55Bills..read my post @ 37. Comprendez?
bills-son
Jan 8, 2012 at 1:08 PM
Comment #56solano – there is no evidence to support your feeder club claim. NONE.
Oleg G
Jan 8, 2012 at 1:11 PM
Comment #57Although against Liverpool lots of people in the blog were cursing Tiote and telling to sell him fast before the other clubs will realise that he is a bad player. I am happy to see that he is still one of the strongest in our team and will just get better and better here (if he will stay and I hope he will). It is a shame that people have such a short memory. He is an excellent player and should stay here until retirement.
Colo, S.T, Ba, HBA, Tiote, Cabaye, Santon, Krul and even Jonas (who lost some touch in the last 2-3 months) are the main players in our club right now. With youngsters and new players building on that, we can become great.
cupiddstunt
Jan 8, 2012 at 2:26 PM
Comment #58Dannyo @ # 3
On that showing the lad has great movement and anticipation he is also cool on the finish.
I have not looked at any of his other goals so don’t know if this is consistent with him but definitely impressive, he looks big, strong, reasonable pace, good movement and good finish, most impressive.
We should definitely make strong moves for him.
Zebras4Life
Jan 8, 2012 at 2:31 PM
Comment #59Kinda sad to say it, but I agree with Shanghai. As a fan, it would be sad to see him go. However, when we signed him for 3.5M Im sure most were unsure of who he was, furthermore, look how well he turned out. If we sell for 30M+…that now puts us in a position to bring on some more young talent or add that to the 35M from the AC deal and sign a STAR like Gotze. Stay optimistic folks…I really feel we are on the right track. Now if they start talking about Cabaye too…Id say its time to throw down. Glad to be a part of the Toon Army!
cupiddstunt
Jan 8, 2012 at 2:45 PM
Comment #60Nimo @ # 12
Sorry have to disagree with you there, manure’s support is well known to come from everywhere but Manchester the bulk of their support are glory hunters.
A couple of seasons winning nothing and that fan base will shrink, couple that up to shitty becoming top dogs in that town for two or three seasons and the shrinking will be quite rapid.
I do not think it’s impossible to make shitty the biggest club in the north west.
ONLINE GUY
Jan 8, 2012 at 3:50 PM
Comment #61Ed
A misleading headline .
Naughty .
cupiddstunt
Jan 8, 2012 at 3:51 PM
Comment #62Solano @ # 55
Read your post at 37 and it is basically poorly formed conjectural pessimistic nonsense you’ve no proof whatsoever for your claims.
There is not a club in the world that does not have a price in place for every player on their books and it has been pointed out several times on this blog the fact that in reality we have sold no one that wanted to be here on agreeable terms.
We have sold players that over priced themselves by which I mean they have all been replaceable by better but cheaper options.
Gone are Barton and Nolan yes they did brilliantly getting us back up but would you swap Cabaye and Tiote for them to came back.
Carroll who signed a new contract and was singing the praises of the club and claiming to be living the dream, got his head turned and just three months after signing his new improved contract was back banging on the door demanding a massive pay rise.
MA had refused several bids up to £30 mil for an unproven (off field troublesome player) and when the bin dippers came back with £35 mil he got it up front. Those are not the actions of a selling club.
Enrique refused to re-sign he wanted away as his head was also turned.
The club has made it know that any bids for our players will not be entertained unless they are funny money bids and paid up front this is to deter bidders, again not the actions of a selling club.
£25 mil has been knocked around for Toite I think this is to prepare clubs to dig deeper if they want to take him away.
I think if Nobby read any of your posts he would ask you to change your name.
Bucks mag
Jan 8, 2012 at 5:17 PM
Comment #63We wouldn’t need to replace Tiote if he was sold, we’ve got plenty of back up already