Remember him? He was the 22-year-old Northern Irish winger who was hotly thought of for a while, and then was allegedly the subject of typically idiotic attention from Joe Kinnear, who allegedly tried to sign him while he was on loan to Birmingham from his own club. Smart move. But now, after spending most of the last two seasons on loan at Birmingham City, Ferguson is being swept under the rug at Newcastle. The Chronicle recently wrongly suggested he was still on loan at Birmingham City, but the truth is he's sitting around in the development squad at Newcastle not getting a sniff as Newcastle struggle to offer much creatively down the left. It's fair enough that Rolando Aarons leapt ahead of Ferguson in the pecking order this summer, but he is out injured for a while and the continued persistence with playing Yoann Gouffran is helping neither the club nor the player. He needs to have competition and the threat of being dropped, because his performances have dropped quite markedly since he came in more than 18 months ago. Part of it is down to his being considered a defensively minded attacking wide-man (a typical Pardew contradiction in terms), when he is a striker at heart, and part of it is him not getting the right instructions. But Ferguson would probably be a better option for covering the defensive requirements of the role, given his time spent at left-back. And it's not like Ferguson is injured - he was an unused substitute for Northern Ireland on Sunday - so his complete invisibility at the minute is a little baffling when Joe Kinnear offered such a glowing picture of him. Tellingly, a statement by Pardew back in March offered an insight into the club's reckless loan policy, which seems to be to ship players out and completely ignore them rather than using strategic loans as a means to developing younger players, as Man Utd and Chelsea have always done. Having praised Mehdi Abeid's form for Panathinaikos, Pardew also added:
Some of the others need to get going. Ive not heard a lot of Ferguson at Birmingham hes not been featuring. He needs to get back in that team.
He hadn't heard a lot of Ferguson. Perhaps he should have had scouting teams sent to the club to report on him, and when he discovered Ferguson wasn't playing, he should have pulled him out of Lee Clark's squad: what else is the point of sending a development squad player out on loan? The player currently has two years left to run on his current deal, and as the loan window remains open until November 27th, the Shields Gazette say that Ferguson could go out to a Football League club along with the likes of Gael Bigirimana, and Haris Vuckic. For his sake, you have to hope someone takes the opportunity and allows him more playing time than he was given at Birmingham City at the end of last season - otherwise he's going to quickly become yet another player added to the NUFC scrap heap thanks to poor talent management.
