Glass is leaving on a free, from TeamTalkingBollox...

Scotland winger Stephen Glass has snubbed Newcastle's offer of a new one-year contract and is now definitely on his way out of St James' Park. The former Aberdeen starlet has set his heart on staying in English football but was disappointed by the terms and length of the deal on the table at St James' Park. He is now free to leave the club for nothing as a free agent and a drop into the First Division with either Coventry or Bradford looks likely. Blackburn have also been linked with the 25-year-old Glass but it is doubtful that Ewood Park boss Graeme Souness believes he would represent an improvement on what he already has at the club.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Answers

He's off to Bolton.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Doesn't make sense to me. If they'd reckoned he was good enough, it wouldn't have been much of a hardship to give him the extra year he wanted, if he wasn't good enough, they shouldn't have made any offer at all.

What were they worried about that made a year the best they could come up with ?

They take a chance on him or they don't. Trying to hedge their bets like this, it shouldn't have come as any surprise that he's not interested.

I'm going to stop trying to figure our lot out, it does me heed in.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

To be fair to the board they probably figured they'd be hedging their liability if he was gonna be as injury prone, it might also have had the effect of making him want to prove to them that he was good enough...

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

I still can't see why the extra year would have caused that many extra problems.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

bob to glass "i'm buying a new left winger whos an international, i'm giving you a year to prove you can do it when the new man gets injured"

anyone would leave...but i don't care much either way

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

He wasn't injured last season. Just not selected.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Pit Bill's comments are spot on, and entirely indicative of the muddle-headed thinking that pervades management at SJP.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

I remember reading that he was injured for quite a bit of last season...

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

That was a frankly disgraceful piece of "journalism" which simply assumed he had been injured as he hadn't played in the first team. Exactly why I got so pissed off when I read it. Unless you are anally retentive enough to build a database to keep track of these things (ahem) you are bound to believe reports like that. I posted the full stats somewhere last week. Basically he played over half the reserve games and was on the bench or playing in the first team for all the rest. His one injury last season was a virus for the Liverpool game.

He's only ever had one lengthy layoff for us when he had his leg broken at SJP.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

I'll do a search on Reuters for the past year - should clear this up in no time.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001