Is Jose close to staying?

Jose Enrique has been speaking to the local press today, which is a rare occurrence these days after the Spaniard was kept away from the media spotlight due to the situation regarding his contract.

As yet, talks are still yet to get underway but it was thought that Enrique wanted to see signs of ambition and improvement in the playing staff over the summer before he committed to a new deal. Don't we all!

This lead to widespread speculation regarding the future of the player who, if you listen to Phil Thompson or the gutter press, is on his way to Liverpool in the summer.

However his comments today seem to suggest that he could yet stay at Newcastle. Whilst remaining coy on any talk of a new deal Enrique was keen to paint a bright picture of the current squad and recognises that things could have been much better had we not had to contend with a lengthly injury list for a large part of the season.

“We’ll see what happens next year and which players come to us," Enrique told The Chronicle. "We have a great squad here though, and we have been very unlucky with injuries. Next season we will hopefully get new players and try to build on a top-10 finish.”

The Spaniard continued: “To finish in the top 10 is important this season and it would be very nice for us to finish ahead of Sunderland."

“I remember they were happy to see us go down, but now we are in Premier League and we have been better than them so far – it’s important we keep going."

It certainly seems from his words that Jose is thinking of staying for next season at least as there is a lot of talk "we" and "next season" involved. It is of course his right to stay as he still has one year remaining on his current deal, but the ultimate aim should be to ensure that we can sign up him up for longer.

I'm still not convinced either way to be honest. My gut feeling is that Jose will be away in the summer, but there is at least still some hope of keeping him at the club. Only time will tell I guess.

If he goes, he goes. A left-back is not vitally important to a team although it does of course help things if you have a good one like Jose. If he stays it will be a massive boost to club and to the fans who adore and chant his name on a regular basis and will show that the club mean what they said when they claimed they wanted to keep hold of their better players. Where they failed with Andy Carroll perhaps they'll succeed with Jose?

Once again, we'll have to wait and see.