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 outsiders

Saturday's substitute appearance wasn't enough to get Dreamboat a place in the French squad for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers - an omission which came as a "shock" to the player, according to the Silver Fox, who is planning on using the down time to hold clear-the-air talks with the midfielder and his representatives. With any luck, he'll realise he can't now leave until January anyway, so he might as well start putting in the sort of effort and performances that might merit a big-money move away from Tyneside.

Meanwhile, our 25-man Premier League squad was announced yesterday. We can adjust it again in January, but until then there's no room for loanees Shane Ferguson, Conor Newton and Romain Amalfitano. While the latter two are no great loss, it is something of a surprise that Ferguson - who has at times looked close to breaking into the first team and gives us a useful option wide on the left - has been omitted in favour of Raylor, who is widely expected to be out for the whole season. Unless the Silver Fox knows something that we don't...

Keen as mustard

No sooner has his big brother pitched up in England than Romain Amalfitano has decided to flit back across the channel, signing on loan for Dijon. This league ain't big enough for the both of them? Not really - Jr has never even come close to threatening to break into the first team. A shame that it's au revoir rather than adieu - unless he somehow manages to impress during his sojourn back home.

Locker clearances underway

According to the Journal, Romain Amalfitano and Mehdi Abeid have both been deemed as surplus to requirements and advised to find new clubs ahead of next season.

Amalfitano sank without a trace following some brief Europa League forays and Abeid followed a similar path (albeit his farewell appears to have been slightly later during the abysmal capitulation at Brighton in the FA Cup). Neither are likely to be missed.

According to the article, Dan Gosling has also been told he can leave, though his departure looks set to initially be on loan. Despite looking a coup when we nicked him from Everton, his time on Tyneside has been dogged by injury and he's never established himself in the first team. As such, his departure has felt inevitable for some time.

What's the French for "clique"?

Confirmation of the Francophone clique within the Newcastle squad: fast forward to about 16:30 and you'll find footage of Dreamboat, HBA, Demba Ba, Sylvain Marveaux, Mehdi Abeid and Romain Amalfitano enjoying a meal and lively game of cards. Speaking French is something the Silver Fox has apparently tried to discourage on the training ground, but the sight of Ba, HBA and Dreamboat on friendly terms and enjoying each other's company can only be good for the cohesion of the team. That said, fellow Francophone player Papiss Cisse is nowhere to be seen...

The footage is part of a twenty-minute Canal+ piece on Dreamboat, which also features the Silver Fox and Mathieu Debuchy - probably primarily of interest to those who can speak French, but it does show Dreamboat working with his personal trainer in his back garden, in his gym and on the beach (presumably on top of the team training sessions held in the mornings).

A model professional, and one we could definitely do with being fit for the visits of Bordeaux and Man Utd - perhaps he might be able to reprise his goalscoring feats against the latter...

Lightning strikes twice

Well, the Xisco Kid, to be more precise. After mustering a grand total of one goal prior to Wednesday, our misfit striker came off the bench to score two vital winners for Deportivo La Coruna in the space of a week. Those goals, against Tarragona and then Huesca, helped propel Depor back into the top flight at the first time of asking following last season's relegation.

Talking of Newcastle players who've recently assisted in other clubs' successful promotion bids, new arrival Romain Amalfitano has been speaking about his "winning mentality" but remains modest and realistic enough to realise that just breaking into the team is going to be tough. His apparent versatility could be a useful asset but could equally prevent him from staking a claim to a regular place.

Meanwhile, Amalfitano's compatriots HBA and Dreamboat both lined up for France on Sunday as les Bleus recovered from two goals down to beat upstarts Iceland 3-2. Dreamboat was deployed in a somewhat unfamiliar anchoring role, while HBA had a hand in the strike that gave France a foothold back in the game, one which came from the boot of wanted man Mathieu Debuchy. Iceland's second, incidentally, was scored by another player once linked with us, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson.

There were also recent international friendly appearances for Tim Krul, unfortunate to be between the sticks as the Netherlands fell to a shock home defeat by Bulgaria, and Papiss Cisse, named as the Senegalese captain for what proved to be a narrow victory over Morocco.

The Romain invasion

A warm welcome to the club to Romain Amalfitano, the forward-thinking midfielder having joined the club as expected. He fits our recent bill to a tee - young (22), French and on a free transfer - and arrives on Tyneside fresh from helping Stade de Reims to promotion to Ligue 1.

He wasn't our first official signing of the summer, though - that honour fell to 16-year-old centre-back Lubomir Satka, recruited from our one-time European opponents FK ZTS Dubnica. Very much one for the future.

The Slovakian could soon be joined in our defensive ranks by a pair of Frenchmen: Mathieu Debuchy, the Lille right-back still firmly on our radar, and Mapou Yanga-Mwiba. The latter's name would be difficult enough to pronounce, let alone work into a chant, but we like a challenge.

Yanga-Mwiba is in France's provisional squad for Euro 2012 and helped unfancied Montpellier claim the title ahead of the likes of Marseille and moneybags PSG. The club's president Louis Nicollin looked on as expensively acquired big names flopped before relegation prompted a policy rethink, resulting in a shoestring budget and a strict wage cap. According to the BBC's Matt Spiro, "modern-day Montpellier is founded on hard work, exceptional spirit, homegrown talent and some extremely shrewd signings". Remind you of anyone in particular? (And yes, let's count Big Lad as "homegrown talent"...)