According to the Shields Gazette, when Sam Allardyce made former Champions League winner Geremi his fourth signing of the 2007 summer window, he clearly decided that he should be nice and pay the Chelsea player Champions League winning wages. That can be the only thinking behind giving the Cameroonian a massive £60k a week, despite the fact that he had only really been on the fringes at Chelsea. Yes his experience was major and he had played well at Middlesbrough to earn the Chelsea move, but when he came in to Newcastle he looked like an entirely different player - not to mention looking suspiciously haggard for someone of apparently peak age and physical condition. Such was his fall from grace that he got precious little playing time in the first half of the season in the Championship, despite the drop in quality of the league, which made the fact that he was still on £40k a week all the more difficult to take.
