Transfer profile: Who is Mevlüt Erdinç?

It seems that the "international striker" that Newcastle United are chasing appears to be one Mevlüt Erdinç, who is currently plying his trade for PSG in France.

It might not be of course, but there have been several clues as to the identity of the mystery striker left by journalist (a pretty reliable one at that), Mark Douglas on the micro-blogging network, Twitter, and Erdinç (or Erding or whatever) seems to be the one that fits the bill, especially when it's gets said that "events over the weekend may have helped". Would they be events such as a club signing a rival striker in the form of one Kevin Gameiro?

Quite possibly.

But who is Mevlüt Erdinç anyway? What's his history like? What type of player is he? I've done some leg work and I hope to come up with some answers to those questions throughout this article.

Erdinç has dual-nationality and was eligible to represent both Turkey, through family, and France, through birth. He chose to represent the country of his family and has made ten international caps since 2008 scoring just the one goal in the process.

However at club level he is much more prolific. For his first club, Sochaux, he managed to bag what works out to be a goal every three games (25 goals in 84 appearances) during his time there. Not bad considering a lot of his appearances came from the bench for a team of perennial strugglers, and that he never really forced his way into the first team until the 2007/2008 season.

His performances earned him a €9 million move to PSG in the summer of 2009 which brought about an upturn in his goalscoring form. He'd scored 11 goals in each of the two seasons previously, but in his first season with PSG he managed 19 goals in 36 appearances. That is a much better return of a goal every (just under) two games which saw him win the PSG Player of the Season award for that season.

Last season wasn't so prolific for him however as he only managed to plunder the nine goals in 36 appearances. The key thing to point out though is that his last season goes against the grain and generally he has always scored more than that.

So what type of player is he? Well he is the type of player I'd be happy with if he had a decent hold-up player working with him up front. I don't think he is cut out for the rough and tumble of the Premier League so he would need someone to help him out. I'd class him as a second striker as opposed to a main striker. Think Craig Bellamy.



He has a bit of pace, a few tricks, and can finish fairly well, all for a price said to be in the region of €8 million. He wouldn't be a bad player for us, if he was paired with the right striker up front.

Now we've just got to wait and see whether or not it's him that is being talked about!