Today’s major Newcastle United stories – Alan Smith all tied up by Big Sam, Martins rumoured to be a liar and there’s a bit about Newcastle being after some defenders.

The Daily Mirror has ‘broken’ the news that Newcastle have tied up Alan Smith from Manchester United for 3.5m and that they failed to get Brown and Silvestre in the bargain as well.

Is Alan Smith on his way to Newcastle It’s possible, although with the players and the managers on break it’s a bit unlikely that anything will be signed / done and dusted before 2nd July. The article in the Mirror itself is full of … well, you get the idea.

I’d be surprised if Ferguson didn’t sell on Silvestre too though (to make space for Pique / Evans), although that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part.

Yesterday we’d talked about Martins being attacked by masked gunmen, today news comes from Nigeria that Martins was not in the car at the time, according to the police. Better be called a liar than be shot at, I’d say. Unless you like being shot at. You’ve never been shot at, right Thought so. No, I haven’t either.

Daily Mirror is having a field day with transfer news, with Luke Young of Charlton Athletic the new defensive target for Newcastle United. L. Young is the 4,502,423rd defender to be linked to Newcastle, and he’s reportedly priced at 3mil.

There are rumours that he’s being thrown in as a freebie if someone buys Darren Bent for 17m (I just made that up, but hey, they started this whole thing about 17m!).

The speculation surround Newcastle and their chase for defenders is bordering on the comical – now they’re dealing with the news that Sevilla are trying to snatch Rozehnal from Big Sam’s hands at the last minute, a process that apparently involves distracting Big Sam by showing him pictures of … never mind, let’s just stick to the footy, shall we