By Tyne-Talk
February 26 2011

Newcastle United midfielder Joey Barton is stalling on new contract talks, preferring to wait until the summer season, before committing to the club. Last week Barton was said to be unhappy by the offer of a 2 year deal rather than being given the option to finish his career at the club. This weekend Pardew has said the following in an interview;

"We have made a decent offer. But it's difficult negotiating with any senior player at this level and I think Joey's view is to perhaps see what happens in the summer.

I don't want to speak for Joey, but that might be where he's at with it. I want to keep him, and I've made that clear to Mike, but that process will probably run until the summer now.

There was a period when Mike perhaps wanted to sell the club. But he's out of the other side of that. He wants to build something here, but he wants to build it in a financial structure where it's not costing him £10-15m a year of his own money.

He wants it to try and run itself and with the fanbase we've got, there's no reason why that can't happen if the finances are correctly managed. Between myself, Mike and Derek we're trying to do that, and in doing that we're trying to build the team.

After the sale of Andy, I think everybody involved with Newcastle, in the dressing room and on the terraces, was a little bit concerned. But I think Mike Ashley wanted to answer that and I think he's done that in the best possible way.

It is a massive statement of intent, and in terms of me and my staff, I think the signing of Cheik is very, very important. I think that's true for the fans as well because they have taken to him and he's a very important player for us. He's someone who would be very difficult to replace.

He's done exceptionally well in his first year, and hopefully he's someone we can build a side around because he gives you some protection to play four midfield players.

When you play against a team with five in midfield, you need energy and legs in there to be able to keep two strikers on the pitch and Cheik gives us that."

"I'm afraid no one's unsaleable," he said.

"That's the truth of it, but we hope we can guard against it with this statement. The difference between the two (Andy Carroll and Tiote) is that Cheik wants to stay here. Although Andy said that, he went.

You can always harp on about the negative of Andy leaving, but we have a surplus of cash to buy in the summer and if I was in the dressing room at the moment, I'd be thinking we already have a good side, as we've proved since Andy left.

If we can improve on that with signings like Cheik and some new players, we could be a force next year. That's what we hope to be."

Barton Unhappy With Two Year Offer

Barton Stalling On Contract Talks

Discussion started by TyneTalk (IP Logged), 26/02/2011 11:12

TyneTalk
26/02/2011 11:12

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tunyc
26/02/2011 17:42

I hope to see whatever Barton says in rebuttal featured here so that I don't have to think of TyneTalk as an official PR arm of the club. The term "stalling" is absolutely pejorative.

Rumors before had NUFC asking him to take a pay cut. Given his form and that the word is Tiote had his wage increased eightfold, I don't think you can blame him for wanting to slow this process down.

And this: "a period when Mike perhaps wanted to sell the club." ?! You mean when he released a statement to the supporters saying that the club was on the market?! That's 'perhaps wanting to sell the club'? This sort of blatant spinning makes me wonder if we'll ever know what this ownership is about.

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