What's the story behind Neil Taylor?

A rather obscure name has been linked with us over the last couple of days, and that name is Neil Taylor.

The Swansea City left-back has been the subject of intense media speculation over the past few days with various news outlets suggesting that a deal for the 22-year-old is at varying stages of being thrashed out for a fee that is said to be just £1 million due to some release clause in the contract of the player.

Again we are touching on what I talked about the other day about the way that NUFC seem to be able to hunt down these cheap contract clauses. If you haven't read it you can do so by clicking here.

Anyway, I'm getting off track here. Basically I'm just wondering what the point is in signing a relatively unknown left-back for a knockdown price. Of course there may not be any truth in this but to be honest it seems to be a bit of strange link for the press to just make up. I mean it's hardly one to hold the back page for now is it?

The way I see it, and yes this is where I am going to come down on the Ashley regime a little bit (I note that I get blasted from certain people who don't like the way that I try to keep a sense of balance ;) ), but the way I see it is that Taylor is good for two things.

The first one is that we have somehow managed to persuade Jose Enrique to stay at Newcastle and sign a new contract. Now he may well have stayed anyway as he still has one year remaining on his current deal, but we've always needed a backup left-back. In fact I think it's been about five, maybe more, years since we've had a couple of players who can play left-back at the club. Could this be where Neil Taylor fits in?

The other option, and this is the one that would really send out the wrong message to fans, is that Neil Taylor is going to be Jose Enrique's replacement. We could see the back of one of the best left-backs in the league to be replaced with a player who has made just 18 appearances in the Championship. Hardly inspiring is it?

Personally, and I think this will be a pretty unanimous call, I hope it's the first option. Unfortunately the problem is that you can't rule out option two. Or the third option is that it's just more paper crap of course.

For all the hype regarding the talk of the Cabaye's and Gervinho's I guess it's worth pointing out that none of them have actually signed on officially yet so effectively we're still in limbo with regard to the kind of players we are waiting to see at St James' Park. There is a good game being talked at the moment, but just how serious are those playing the game being?

So in an unlikely way, the signing, or not, of Neil Taylor could be one of the defining moments of our summer.

And I bet you wouldn't have thought that a few weeks ago!