6. Mike Williamson
Likely Fee: £1.5m Since signing midway through the Champsionship winning 2009/10 season after an unsuccessful (and largely inactive) spell at Portsmouth, Williamson coped well at times last term when Steven Taylor's season-ending injury forced his selection as one of the few fit centre-halves at the club. Williamson himself suffered a difficult injury last year, and it appears to have affected his pace, which was already far from blistering, while his heading ability leaves a lot to be desired for a man of his stature. It isn't that he cannot win the headers, which he plainly can, it's more that he can't seem to add the required power to clear well from a header (something that Steven Taylor and James Perch both massively outclass him at) and his directional sense from headers is again relatively poor. He is enthusiastic, but it's hard to see Williamson as anything more than this generation's Andy O'Brien, who filled a gap but was ultimately not deemed the right quality for a team heading for top four or five contention. If Newcastle are indeed set to sign Brazilian Douglas from Twente, or another of their defensive options, Williamson is the most likely of the current crop of centre-halves to be made available for transfer, and would be a good signing for a lower to mid-table Premier League team. But for Newcastle, heading into European competition, other options will no doubt be stronger, and the former Watford man might not be happy to sit on the bench behind captain Coloccini, Steven Taylor and probably James Perch at centre-half (or he would be if Pardew is basing his selections on quality), plus whoever else is added to the squad. Removing Williamson from the pitch will also hopefully stop something that was a frequent point of frustration for Newcastle fans last season - the set-piece set-up that saw the ball clipped to the back-post for the centre-back to nod back across the goal to a team-mate. A nice idea in theory, but it never actually worked last year, and was frustratingly stuck with long past the point it had obviously become useless.