Time is up for Bramble at Newcastle
The two center backs playing for Newcastle United in the league through the end of the season are both playing for new contracts in the summer.
Oguchi Onyewu (Gooch) of course is on loan from Standard Leige until the end of the season and can only play in the league since he is ineligible for the UEFA cup, having already represented the Belgian club this season.
I fully expect Gooch to earn a contract at Newcastle for this no frills six foot five inch no-nonsense US defender.
More uncertainty however hangs over Titus Bramble, whose initial five year contract with Newcastle (when he was signed by Sir Bobby Robson from Ipswich for $5M in July 2002) runs out this summer.
Bramble had had a patchy career in the Newcastle side where he has made some well documented howlers and the word on him is still that he cannot concentrate over the full ninety minutes.
Lately however, he has been on a good run of form with mistakes at a premium and while Glenn Roeder has expressed his confidence in Bramble Newcastle may try to entice other center backs (Sylvain Distin, Anton Ferdinand, Jonathon Woodgate) to the club in the summer.
If they can do this I cannot see them signing Bramble to another contract – because they will have signed Gooch and another top-class center back and they already have very promising youngsters like Steven Taylor, Peter Ramage, Paul Huntington and David Edgar who are all center backs.
The only reason they would give Bramble a new contract is to recover some of the $5M transfer fee.
It is time for Bramble to leave - for a fee, which will allow Newcastle to strengthen the center of their defense once and for all.
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Discussion - 9 Responses
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you obviously are not taking into account the stupidity and favouratism of glen roeder.
I hope Newcastle won’t make a new contract with Titus. There are no guarantees that anybody would pay for him in the summer…
Anyway, I think we should look no further than West Ham. Neill and Upson most likely have clauses in their deals, which would make them bargains in the summer after the Hammers are relegated. It also seems that they want to get rid of Anton, which also drops his price. Two out of those three would be great captures - obviously none of in the caliber of Woody, but I doubt we have a chance to get him. Chelsea, or even Real, might try to get him..
I hope Roeder is awake when the markets open in the summer. There are some quality players moving for little or no money in the beginning.
Think Chelsea would bring off a coup if they could get Woodgate- Terry and Woodgate would be terrific together….and of course Woodgate showed on Saturday what we have missed - he is one great player.
I think Bramble’s time is up, 5 years has given us no sign of the player we were expecting, and him playing well some of the time is not good enough. From what I have seen of Gooch, I think that he will prove his worth by the end of the season. Taylor is going to be good but we need another centre half for next season. Distin would cost less than others and has lived on Tyneside before, Anton Ferdinand I would take but am not sure if he would want to leave London. There is no way I would spend the majority of a summer transfer budget on Curtis Davies, although I can see him being a very good player. If next season we started with Gooch, Distin/Ferdinand, Taylor and Ramage as our 4 main centre halves, I would be happy. Then there is the question of full backs, none of the ones we have are good enough?
Think we are OK at right back - Nobby is excellent there and Taylor, Edgar and Huntington can also play well there.
I think some of the names mentioned above as possible signings (neill, ferdinand,upson, distin)are all hugely overrated and we have unfortunately missed our chance with woodgate who won’t be signing for boro either - he’s set for much better things.
For what it’s worth I think we will keep Titus (we are losing moore) and it’s too early to judge Gooch - we need to see him a few more times to make a judgement. What we need, and what we have needed for years, is a good experienced centre half who has played at the top level for a number of years but Glen seems intent on signing somebody ‘young who will reduce the average age of the squad’ - not what we need as we already have plenty of those (ramage, taylor, huntingdon and edgar). Still there’s time for him to change his mind.
Bramble is one lean mean bean, he will make us solid at the back and he is mint, Bramble should stay, he is Geordie, in 3 years he should captain, hes mean.
The possibles mentioned all carry something that makes me hope they don’t come; Ferdinand sounds like trouble - and we appear to me from this distance to have got rid of the stirrers and problems that beset us a few seasons ago; Woodgate will stay with the Smogs I think; home town, less expectation etc and Distin has already been with us and I can’t see him returning. If Onyewu measures up and stays then as you ‘ve said there are plenty of promisng and talented centre-backs there already. It’s two quality full-backs we need immediately not centre-backs - no disrespect to Nobby. At least you haven’t fallen under Lucas Neil’s spell. He had a good world cup but that I think was the exception as he’s run of the mill normally.