For the fourth year in a row Newcastle will try to unload Spanish striker Xisco.
Xisco – while playing at Newcastle
This lad was signed on the last day of the transfer window in the summer of 2008, and has made only 9 starts for Newcastle, but we are still paying him £50K/week.
He was signed from Deportivo, who have made a few good deals with Newcastle for their players over the years, and the irony is that Xisco is back there playing on loan.
Deportivo were relegated last summer, but they are currently top of the Spanish second division on 85 points from 40 games, and are 4 points ahead of the second placed side Celta, with just two games to play.
And we fully expect them to be back in Spain’s top league next season, and would you believe that Xisco, who turns 26 in June, even scored a last-minute winner on Wednesday night, as Deportivo almost sealed their promotion with a 2-1 win over Gimnastic Taragona.
And the lad doesn’t score too many goals these days, and the emotional Spaniard said after the game:
“This is my best moment in football.”
Xisco has now played 14 times for the Spanish club this season with just two goals, but he is not a starter, and the hope is that Xisco can be off-loaded back to his former club on a permanent basis, with 12 months of his Newcastle contract still to run.
Of course Newcastle have been trying to do that since the summer of 2009, after his first season on Tyneside, when it was obvious he was nowhere near Premier League class.
What was Dennis Wise thinking when he bought the Spanish U21 player for Newcastle for £5.7M?
Apparently Deportivo said they would consider buying back Xisco if they won promotion this season, but we’ll see what they do – and quite honestly we expect them to try to secure another loan deal for him.
And that would leave his £50K/week largely on the books at Newcastle, for the final year of his five year deal.
That’s what happens when you pay out big money and big wages for a player, who is untested in the Premier League – it’s what we used to do a lot under the old regime.
Newcastle these days buy players and offer them reasonable wages, and if they turn out to be top players, like Check Tiote as one example, they quickly give them a big wage increase, but only after they have proved themselves on Tyneside.
That’s the sensible thing to do, and let’s hope we can offload Xisco this summer, but we’re not holding our breath.
Comments welcome.
41 comments so far
NEWEXPATMAGPIE
May 26, 2012 at 6:20 AM
Comment #41Xisco is one of the biggest running fiasco,s from our recent past!
He was brought in by Wise on the strength of a you-tube video behind the current managers back and cost a shed load of money!
He was then just not given a chance to get into the first team after becoming a reserve team player whog gets injured frequently and milking his weekly wage! A lot of fans just could,nt understand why he was signed in the first place! Some, even felt sorry for the lad!
And to get him on a 5 year deal on a 50k week? It sounds like a Telly-Tubby was negotiationg our Contracts back then!
So what is then the way forward with him! Buy out his contract via a Lawyer and just pay him off! Would be an option.
Bring him back, stick him in the reserves and start making him earn his 50k a week wage! Either way and which ever way we look at this Saga and it is a Saga, Newcastle have been shafted financially by the agent and the Player!
As for the posts here @15 and @19:
It would seem that there are still one or two children on here!