Newcastle Open Negotiations For Lille’s Gervinho

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Newcastle Open Negotiations For Lille’s Gervinho

11:22 am, Sunday, February 27th, 2011 by Ed Harrison · 6 Comments

There’s some good news today coming from French sources, that Newcastle United have already started preliminary negotiations with French club Lille to acquire 23 year-old Gervinho.

Gervinho - Newcastle open negotiations for player

The reports are saying that the famous Newcastle club have opened tentative negotiations, as they look to tie up the £10M rated Ivory Coast International.
And with Cheick Tiote committing himself to the club on Friday, you have to think that our midfield dynamo can persuade his Ivory Coast team-mate to join him on Tyneside – we hope so anyway.
Gervinho can play on either wing or as a striker, and from what we can tell he looks like he could become an excellent buy for the Newcastle club.
Gervinho is said to be one of a number of striker targets being considered by Newcastle, but he has to be near or at the top of the list,  for Newcastle to start negotiations now.
This is not the first time Newcastle have been linked with the Ivory Coast International, who has 19 caps and  5 goals for his country, and who was also interesting other clubs last month.
Lille wanted to keep the player through the end of the season,  to help them win the French League,  and the side are currently second top of the French league, just one point behind Rennes with a game in hand.  Lille entertain Lyon this afternoon, who are in 4th place.
Gervinho has scored 23 goals in 53 games for the French club, and 10 goals in 21 games so far this season.
Gervinho turns 24 in May, and started his career at Belgium club Bevern in 2005, and moved to French club Le Mans in 2007, before joining Lille in 2009.
The 5’11″ player has over 165 first class appearances in his career, and has scored over 40 goals.
Since his contract runs out in 16 months,  Newcastle may be able to get a decent deal for the player, and we’d be surprised if the fee is as much as £10M.
We have to hope that we can tie up one or two of our major targets before the end of the season.