Just seen a rumour on twitter. Newcastle scout Graham
Carr, who cherry picked the likes of Cabaye, Tiote, Cisse, Ben Arfa and a few others from the French league, apparently recommended the 2 french lads after scouting them, to knock a few quid off the Bigi deal.
I know he's very highly thought of as a scout, just signed a ridiculous deal for like 10 years or something. Could be interesting though. He obviously knows what he's on about.
Miserable sods! I think both Alan and Jimmy are excellent comics.
I hope there is some truth in the original post and tbh it would make sense. I'm sure that he notices players all the time over there who are decent but not right for Newcastle and in our current plight he knows that we will be no short-term threat to them. I imagine this sort of thing is fairly common in deals as a carrot to get the deals over the line - I certainly hope so anyhow
Don't forget Thorn also played for Newcastle and as an ex-scout who is also respected as such, probably has a lot of contacts and I imagine knows Carr. I think this certainly plausible.
It is strange that given our financial limitations, we were able to send scouts to France. I can't imagine we have much of a budget to scout outside UK and Ireland, so it does seem like we've been tipped off.
Not that thats a problem, surely its part of being a good scout to use your network to unearth new players. Fair Play to Thorn if this is true.
Don't forget Thorn also played for Newcastle and as an ex-scout who is also respected as such, probably has a lot of contacts and I imagine knows Carr. I think this certainly plausible.