Newcastle United have a solid recent history of signing players from Ligue 1 for next to nothing and increasing their value over night.
Several sources are reporting that they have their eyes on Mamadou Sakho from Paris Saint-Germain as a replacement for Fabricio Coloccini who has said he wants to return to his beloved Argentina.
1) Sakho has played for France at six different levels which makes him an extremely experienced international centre back. These sides are the Under-16, Under-17, Under-18, Under-19, Under-21 and senior teams.
2) His primary position is as a left sided centre back but he has been used at left back by France and PSG.
3) He joined PSG as a 12-year-old in 2002 spending five years in the youth teams before moving into the senior side in 2007. He has only ever played for PSG producing five goals in 139 appearances.
4) Sakho joined PSG as a striker but was told to change positions by the club’s youth coaches as the club had too many forwards.
5) He’s won four honours during his career; the French Cup and League Cup team titles and young player of the year for Ligue 1 and team of the year for Ligue 1 in 2010/2011.
Exciting prospect?
image: © strange lands travel blog
Lewis Doe
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Lewis Doe is a freelance writer and editor who seeks to bring you the biggest, smallest and most interesting stories from the football world. Lewis has previously written for some of the biggest football news and opinion sites in the world including FootballFanCast and Goal.com International. Lewis is also experienced writing in the betting industry and aims to deliver his stories with up to date factual and statistical information. He hopes to sum up stories for the site and provide an angle on the issue moving forward.
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