Greeks bearing gifts

Last year, it was Conor Newton and Paul Dummett (and very nearly Curtis Good); this year, the Toon loanee collecting a medal while his parent club's trophy cabinet continues to gather dust is Mehdi Abeid. Not that he was much help in Panathinaikos' 4-1 Greek Cup victory over PAOK - more of a hindrance, conceding the penalty from which PAOK scored.

Meanwhile, another forgotten man of the Newcastle squad, Romain Amalfitano, belatedly scored his first goal for Ligue 2 outfit Dijon. Pardon the groansome pun, but he doesn't appear to have cut the mustard back in his native country and will no doubt be high on our list of players to ship out in the summer.

The boyo done good

Setting transfer window issues aside, congratulations to Paul Dummett, whose elevation to the Newcastle first-team squad has resulted in a similar elevation to the senior Welsh squad for the forthcoming international fixtures. Whether he makes his bow alongside the world's most expensive player remains to be seen.

Fellow left-sided player Shane Ferguson has been enduring a tougher time at Birmingham. Despite creating the opening goal for Matt Green with a delicious cross in the 3-2 defeat at Leicester, the Northern Irishman was dropped to the bench for Saturday's visit of Ipswich. Blues appear to have continued last season's form, much to Lee Clark's dismay, and the picture is even less rosy off the pitch, as detailed in a recent post on The Two Unfortunates.

Meanwhile, Mehdi Abeid scored a somewhat fortuitous goal for his loan club Panathanaikos at the weekend. Scoring is something that Adam Campbell wasn't given the opportunity to do on loan in Cumbria - he's already back on Tyneside, a clearly disgruntled Silver Fox commenting "That didn’t work out at Carlisle, and he won’t be going back there". He may only be back temporarily, though, with a move to hook up with Conor Newton at St Mirren a possibility.

Steve Davis may have talked up Brad Inman's future, but his recent past at Crewe has been far from encouraging. He played for 21 minutes off the bench as the Railwaymen lost to League One leaders Leyton Orient, and was then handed a start for the trip to Swindon last weekend - only for the home side to romp to a 5-0 victory. The identity of the Robins' first scorer? Inman's former club colleague the Lone Ranger.

On the subject of familiar faces, the Reserves were beaten 5-4 by West Ham yesterday, despite taking a three-goal lead through a Jonathyn Quinn hat-trick. You ain't seen nothing like the mighty Quinn? Well, the Hammers had - one Elliot Lee, who grabbed a hat-trick of his own, two goals coming from the spot. The onlooker with conflicted loyalties? That would be his dad, Rob Lee.

Two more out of the door

Michael Richardson and Mehdi Abeid are the latest fringe players to be allowed to leave on loan. Richardson, who had a spell with Gillingham this spring, has gone back to League Two with Accrington Stanley. His namesake Leam left the club in April, so the manager he'll be turning out for is none other than James Beattie, once upon a time strongly linked with his parent club as a potential replacement for Wor Al. Abeid, meanwhile, has teamed up with Greek outfit Panathinaikos, and like Richardson is probably looking forward to getting some game time. It's doubtful that either has much of a long-term future on Tyneside.