Newcastle United Revive Bid To Sign Cheikh M'Bengue

Newcastle United are still chasing 22 year-old Toulouse left full-back Cheikh M'Bengue, according to a report in The Journal. M'Bengue was one of Newcastle's summer targets as a replacement for Jose Enrique but The Magpies weren't willing to meet their asking price, believed to be more than the £5 million they sold Enrique to Liverpool for. M'Bengue and PSV Eindhoven's Erik Pieters were the the top two targets for Newcastle last year and at one time they got very close to purchasing the latter before the untimely death of his grandfather led to the Dutch international staying in his homeland. In the end Newcastle secured Italian Davide Santon for £5.3 million as a makeshift left-back, presumably with the idea of eventually being moved into the right-back position he plays for the Italian U21's. The long term future for Santon definitely seems to be in the right-back slot with Danny Simpson's performances this season being suspect and his contract running out in 2013. Alan Pardew deciding to substitute Santon at half time in his last two matches seems to indicate he doesn't see Santon being comfortable there and the search for a dedicated left-back will speed up in the summer. M'Bengue, a Senegalese international team-mate of Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse, has played 110 times (104 starts) for his home town club where he emerged through their Academy, scoring two goals. The strong tackling left-back (compared to Chieck Tiote for his tackling style) stands at 6' tall and although he represented the French U21 team 12 times, he decided to play for Senegal last summer as he struggled to get a game ahead of Patrice Evra. The big question is whether Newcastle will increase last summer's bid to the £7 or 8 million that Toulose might hold out for considering he is one of their prized assets.