Newcastle boss Bobby Robson has claimed he will continue to back home-grown talent, and mentioned his #7 million capture of Carl Cort as an example of that.

Robson has admitted the fact that the former Wimbledon frontman is English was a factor in the transfer, which went through as Chelsea chairman Ken Bates was lambasting the lack of quality players being produced in Britain.

"We had some options and we had to give it some consideration as to which lane we would go down and that was the lane we decided to go down," said Robson.

"He (Cort) is English for a start and we want to keep within the club a strong nucleus of English players. We have bought two foreigners in the two Argentinians, who are class players, and we have other foreigners.

"But we won't bring any other foreigners in who are not class. If we do bring foreigners in, they will be a top player. But to buy English as well is very important for us.

"Carl came on to the market as a 22-year-old class player, who is English, and we went for it. There were other clubs interested in him, big clubs, and we've beaten them to the punch. Newcastle paid up the money before anyone else. They were sniffing, we were Buying.

"For a big boy, he's like Duncan Ferguson in that he's got an excellent touch and he's got mobility," said Robson. "He's 6ft 4in, so he's going to be a handful in the air and he likes the centre-forward game.

"He'll hold the ball up for us and he'll make great runs. I think he scored 17 goals last season playing in a wide position, coming in on the diagonal.

"If we put him up front where he's got a chance of getting on the end of crosses from both flanks like Ferguson and Alan Shearer, he'll be very dangerous.

"We've got Ferguson and we've got Shearer and now we've got Cort. If we get an injury or we want to make a substitution, out of the three of them, we've got a hell of a front line, and then we've got Cordone. My assistant tells me that Cordone will get into the team, so I've got some nice decisions to make," he beamed.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Answers

The trouble with making a statement like this is that you have to be able to back it up and as yet Bobby has hardly bought from home soil (Gallagher and Cort).

Hopefully he'll follow this up with a couple more British signings.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Yes I did cringe when I read this...

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Could we use Ray Parlour ?

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Yes but give me some time to think exactly what we could use him for!

I we were hell bent on playing wing-backs maybe but that is the only way I would seriously consider signing him. Especially at 5 million.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

Good. Go and put your money where your mouth is Robson. Mullins is waiting at Crystal Palace.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000