Striker will be the Ki signing, not Korea ace
Free transfer is fine but firepower needed
SO WHAT do we make of Ki Sungyueng’s signing after waiting so long for a breakthrough during a dry and barren summer?
Well, he is either a 29-year-old free transfer from a relegated club who was once farmed out to Sunderland as a lightweight or he is a World Cup skipper no less with more than an impressive 100 caps.
It is either a typical skinflint deal by Mike Ashley or an astute bit of clever manipulating by Rafa Benitez.
I know many Newcastle fans who have a firm foot in one camp or t’other due mainly, I suspect, to the timing.
Had Ki followed a big-priced striker imported amid trumpets to send hopes soaring off the Richter Scale then it would have been all wine and roses.
It is not Ki’s fault he suffers by arriving before any other new faces, just the world of uncertainty he has entered.
However, there is no doubt United supporters will back the South Korean strongly because they are desperate for all new faces to succeed in their name.
All we ask is full-blooded, bigpriced, recognised top-quality follows to produce the optimism United require going into a tough start to a new season.
That, of course, means a goalscorer, by far the most important single target of the summer.
Of course, other players are required to better the team and squad – but a No.9 is of the utmost importance.
Ki has undoubted skills, though Swansea fans became publicly scathing, claiming he did not put in as much of a shift for club as country.
We shall see. Ability is a very good start.
Having gone to school in Australia, returned home to play professionally and then found his way into English territory via Scotland (Celtic) and Wales (Swansea) this well-travelled young man needs a good start in a city of passion _ something he experienced in Glasgow.
If Mikel Merino is waiting for the Real deal then Ki has still to get past either former Swan team-mate Jonjo Shelvey or Mo Diame into United’s starting line up and jostle alongside Isaac Hayden while doing it.
He also has to prove a far better acquisition than another departing midfielder Jack Colback, who came via a much longer touchdown in Sunderland as a player of supposedly tidy give and take.
However the arrival of Benitez saw Colback’s stock plummet to zero. Yesterday’s man if ever there was one.
Surely Ki must overtake Colback in the ratings pretty quickly.
Free transfer men are not literally for free, of course.
Signing on fees, agents fees, and hefty wages must all come into play.
Nevertheless Ashley has retained most of his expendable money which must not only please him but allow Benitez to do further business pretty quickly. We need that.
There was a footballer in recent times called Ba who did not too shabby at Newcastle.
So can another of limited letters – Ki – achieve as much overall in black and white? We’d love to think so.