Source: PA
Pardew preparing for summer spending
Newcastle boss Alan Pardew and his scouting team have started to identify potential targets for a summer recruitment drive.
Pardew is keen to be fully prepared for a crucial transfer window during which he hopes to be presented with the proceeds of Andy Carroll's £35million departure for Liverpool. The manager's spending power will, of course, depend on his current crop of players finishing the job of securing the club's Barclays Premier League status during the remaining 10 games of the campaign.
Uncertainty remains over the futures of Jose Enrique and Joey Barton with talks over new contracts having been put on hold, but a list of prospective signings is being drawn up with the Magpies having already been linked with the likes of Cheick Tiote's Ivory Coast international team-mate Gervinho and PSV Eindhoven winger Jeremain Lens.
Pardew told Press Association Sport: "We have sat down and discussed briefly what the plans are, of course. It's very important to have a strategic plan of what you are doing.
"We don't want to be doing everything at the last minute - although like all transfer windows, you have to be patient because sometimes there are six or seven teams involved around one player who is available, and then they fall away.
"It might happen right at the last minute, but there has been three or four months' work gone into that particular player. We might not be signing players as soon as the window opens, but believe you me, we are very much on the case of players we feel might take us forward."
