Newcastle defender Fabricio Coloccini has agreed a new contract with the club.
The new deal is a one-year extension which means he is a Newcastle player until 2017 at the absolute earliest. Coloccini has been linked with a move to Crystal Palace this summer on many occasions, so the news that he has signed a new deal will be welcome relief for Toon fans on the eve of the new season.
Coloccini is looking forward to staying at Newcastle and captaining the club next year, he told reporters:
“I am also very happy to continue as the captain of this football club. Captaining Newcastle makes me so proud. I am not from this city or this country, and so to be given the responsibility of wearing the armband every week is a very special thing.”
Steve McClaren called the Argentine ‘one of the best characters’ he has worked with and it is likely he will play a lot of games this season as Newcastle aim to improve on their dismal 17th placed finish last season.
“He’s been captain here for seven years and there has been speculation. People have denied it, but it’s a fact. Don’t deny it, it’s a fact,” McClaren said.
“That’s affected Colo in terms of somebody being out there offering him a three-year contract. I think it was a distraction. So we went along with it and we had to make a decision and I asked a lot of people and the senior players and to a man everybody wanted Colo in the team.
“They respect him as a player as a man and as a captain and from then on it was quite simple just to sit down and go ‘you know what, we want you’. From day one, he said to me he wanted to finish his career at Newcastle, but there were three or four opportunities he had.
“As always in these decision, we had to make a statement and the club has done that. Colo is back on board.”
