Nile Ranger looks likely to be transferred to Blackpool

Posted on July 11th, 2011 | |

Newcastle United’s Nile Ranger is allegedly set to complete a transfer to Blackpool today.

Although I can not yet find any official confirmation of any deal, the news comes from Click Lancashire who, as far as I can gather, aren’t usually in the business of rumour-mongering like some of the national press.

Ranger’s exit has certainly been on the cards this transfer window anyway after the player was declared ‘surplus to requirements’ at Newcastle, and Blackpool sounds like the sort of team who would be interested in him.

Maybe Ian Holloway can get the best out of the player for the Tangerines.

Ranger definitely has some talent but at Newcastle it was often overshadowed by problems with his discipline and he was regularly fined for turning up late to practise. I can’t imagine his gun-toting photograph helped matters, although I doubt that was singularly responsible for Newcastle’s decision to transfer-list him.

Details of the transfer agreement are not yet available (assuming it’s true of course, which I am) but I would imagine he would cost Blackpool something in the region of £1m-£2m.

The 20 year-old striker was brought to Newcastle in 2008 by Dennis Wise and impressed in the under-18’s and the reserves, scoring 22 goals for them in his first season, and he has also managed 6 goals in 12 games for the England Under-19’s. This success did not translate to the first team though where Ranger only has 3 goals from 58 appearances, which is not a good strike rate even if we allow for the fact that a lot of those appearances have been as a substitute.

I have always felt that he just needed to get ‘properly started’ with his first-team goal-scoring (if you see what I mean) and then he would begin to gain some momentum but, alas, it never happened.

Please bear in mind that nothing is official yet, although I suspect we’ll hear soon enough.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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