It’s being reported today that Wayne Routledge’s time at Newcastle is set to come to an end. The winger looks set to return to Queens Park Rangers, the club he signed for Newcastle from a year ago, but whether that’s to join Neil Warnock on a permanent deal or on a six-month loan until the end of the season is yet to become clear. The exit of Routledge could well pave the way for a new addition to Alan Pardew’s Newcastle squad, and that could well come in the form of Shaun Wright-Phillips.
I might be getting ahead of myself a little bit here, but that would seem to make sense. It’s been well documented that Newcastle have been after SWP for a long period of time and made a firm bid for the England winger a couple of years back. Wright-Phillips is currently frozen out at Manchester City and seemingly desperate for a move away from Eastlands to resurrect both his club and international career.
I wrote an article a few weeks back saying that if Newcastle could sign one player in the January Transfer Window, I would want it to be Shaun-Wright Phillips (you can read that in full here). SWP is an exciting talent and exactly the sort of player that the St James’ Park faithful love, a winger that’s willing to take players on. The 29-year old would bring pace to the Newcastle starting eleven and has plenty of experience of playing at the top level, and in many ways could be described as a BETA version of Wayne Routledge. Even if SWP did only sign for Newcaslte on loan, it would still be a good move for the club, and if he impressed they could snap him up on something more permanent like they’ve done recently with Hatem Ben Arfa.
There is of course the possibility that Newcastle let Routledge leave and don’t bring anyone in to replace him. While this would be extremely disappointing, it would not be the end of the world. Joey Barton has been on fire this season and seems to be fairly comfortable on the right hand side, and the returning Dan Gosling and Ben Arfa could both be deployed in that position. In regards to Routledge, he hasn’t really cut it in the Premier League and probably never will, but credit has to be given to him for helping Newcastle get promoted from the Championship last season.
So will the impending exit of Wayne Routledge from Newcastle lead to an exciting arrival in the form of Shaun-Wright Phillips? This could purely be wishful thinking on my part, but I’d love to see SWP at SJP! Whether it will happen we’ll have to wait and see, but Wright-Phillips would definitely be an asset for Newcastle and strengthen Alan Pardew’s squad as the Magpies look to kick on in 2011. SWP to Newcastle? Watch this space…
