It would appear that Fabricio Coloccini is close to signing a new contract, or at least open to the idea. If he were to sign on the dotted line that would simply be fantastic as he epitomises everything that is right with Newcastle at the moment.
He decided to stick with the club after relegation when it would have been much easier to return to Spain or Italy, and it is this sort of character that shines through in the Newcastle performances, especially last weekend when the players responded superbly to going behind twice against Spurs.
Pardew described him as a “Rolls-Royce player,” and he undoubtedly is. He is simply top class. I would go so far as saying he is the best centre half I have seen at Newcastle since I really started watching the club in 1998.
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The problem we have is that he is also on Rolls-Royce wages. I remain unconvinced that Ashley will not try to convince Coloccini to take a wage cut. He may well be happy to do this but what if a club like Valencia come in for him and can get closer to matching the wages are Newcastle are offering him in addition to the lure of Champions League football?
The manager seemed to indicate that we may be prepared to break the strict the wage structure at the club in order to keep the captain here. “The financial position we are starting to get ourselves into gives us a chance to maybe compete a little bit stronger for those players who are threatened.”
Whilst the departures of Nolan and Barton were easy enough to replace, and even Enrique to a much lesser extent, the gap that Coloccini would leave in the back line would be huge, as well as the fact that he is our captain.
All we can do is hope to one day in the near future wake up to the headline, “Fab Captain Pens New Deal”, just like Tiote did not so long ago.
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