Reserve football
According to the font of all knowledge the Daily Mail, Newcastle plan to pay Robbie Elliot £12,000 a week to be their third choice goalkeeper. Charlton fan or not, you look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t move job or town for that kind of pay increase.
Pardew was always very good at spending other people’s money and it looks like he’s convinced Newcastle’s board to return with a more realistic offer and hopefully they will be embarrassed into paying us a bit more than what he’s actually worth. I’m thinking in the realms of £250,000 although that might include add-ons.
I see also that French club Sochaux have also reported the Geordies after an alleged illegal approach for their forward Modibo Maiga. More reason to come to terms with Charlton and for us to discreetly withdraw our complaint.
Elliot has been in his best form this season and of course not many of us have ever seen Hamer play, but we need to move on and now use this money to invest in more needy positions in the squad. Rumours persist that Paul Benson and Simon Francis will leave before the deadline. Benson to either Gillingham, Leyton Orient or his home town club of Southend United and Francis on loan.
Meanwhile tonight I’d like to see (or hear about) Mikel Alonso, Cedric Evina, Andy Hughes, Ruben Bover, Bradley Pritchard, Ben Hamer and Danny Green. I hope a few or all of these are given some sort of run out. A settled team is great and would suggest that it’s a winning team, but good managers and good teams are able to switch players and formations at will and I’d like to see Powell associate himself with this.
This also brings back the debate about reserve team football. With only five substitutes and just three of those getting on for 15 minutes if they are lucky, you can throw all the training and sports science at it in the world, but those players when called upon will not be match ready.
If I was Powell and Slater even I would consider the poorly represented Football Combination League. Add this to the Kent Senior Cup, which we begin in at the end of November with an away tie at Bromley plus some behind closed doors friendlies and this might be enough to keep the whole squad active and relieve the monotomy of every day training and the frustration of not being in a matchday squad.
I suspect we would take £250,000 to shed a goalie but if the Toon can give Elliot £12,000 a week in wages, they can afford to give us closer to £500,000 for our first choice keeper when we have no need to sell him. What dismays me over this is that we have all known of Newcastle’s interests for a lot longer than the last fortnight and having recruited three new keepers, we have telegraphed our readiness to release Elliot.