Why have the club let Shay Given to be in a position whereby he can talk to clubs about a free transfer in the New Year. When all the Bosman stuff started the board were so proud that they had no players who were able to walk out on the club.

Surely it would have been prudent to give him a contract anyway so in any case we could command a transfer fee if we decided to sell him. Many clubs would like Shay to play for them, finding a buyer wouldn't have been a problem.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

Answers

It takes two to make a contract and Given hasn't signed anything offered to him yet. It's up to him if he wants to sign or not. If we had a decent back-up for Harper I'd be happy to sell him. On the other hand we'd only get around #2M.

I'm sure it'll get sorted.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

The main problem is that Shay has an excellent bargaining position. There's a real drought of decent goalkeepers across Europe, and his recent performances are all but faultless.

If he wants to stay with us, then he will sort it all out before long. Otherwise, he's bound to go to Celtic.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

>>>>Why have the club let Shay Given to be in a position whereby he can talk to clubs about a free transfer in the New Year.

The club has a policy (as outlined to me in answer to my query at the AGM) of re-signing a player in the season BEFORE his contract expires. Shay must have turned down offers to date which is not the club's fault. There's still time to sign him up. I hope we can hang on to him.

>>>>When all the Bosman stuff started the board were so proud that they had no players who were able to walk out on the club.

"When all the Bosman stuff started" we lost 3 players straight away - 2 of them keepers, Shakey,Pav and Peacock. Since then we have done quite well in retaining players. A little too well in the case of many of them! (-; (And yet another keeper's name springs to mind there.)

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

This from team twaddle, and I've seen similar stuff on other sites.

Two join race to sign Given

Two Premiership clubs have entered the race for Shay Given as the Irish goalkeeper continues to stall on signing a new contract at Newcastle. The identity of the two new interested parties has not been confirmed but many observers are assuming it is two of Arsenal, Liverpool or Aston Villa. Given was expected to put pen to paper on a new five-year deal at St James's Park yesterday but it appears his personal terms are still a stumbling block. Celtic have been very keen to lure him back to Parkhead, where he began his career as a trainee. But their need for a new keeper is not so urgent now that the deadline for registering players for their UEFA Cup campaign has passed. Bobby Robson wants to keep 24-year-old Given on Tyneside but the longer the player's new deal remains unsigned the more the United manager will have to consider the option of cashing in on him now rather than lose him for nothing when his current contract expires next summer. The Arsenal and Villa links seem stronger than that with Liverpool, who only this summer signed Pegguy Arphexad as back-up to Dutch international Sander Westerveld.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2000

Teamtalk ae saying that Given has signed a new three year contract.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2000