Stephen Ireland to Sign Loan Deal with Newcastle United

Multiple sources are reporting that Stephen Ireland has agreed on a loan deal with Newcastle United. Ireland was on Tyneside earlier today to complete a medical evaluation, will reportedly sign the necessary paperwork on Monday to make the move official.

Stephen Ireland was signed by Aston Villa this August in the time between the tenures of Martin O'Neill and Gerard Houllier and never got along with Houllier. He made his debut against Newcastle, which as you may recall ended very poorly for the Villans. He ended up making only 13 appearances and has not played in over a month.

Newcastle will be paying 70 percent of Ireland's wages, which comes out to about £45,000 a week. (MirrorFootball) Seb Larsson won't be happy to hear that. There's no word on when he may be available, but there's plenty of time between now and Wednesday so it's reasonable to assume he could play against Fulham, likely in Danny Guthrie's place.

I don't understand this move. Sure, it's only a loan, but that's a lot of wages for a reclamation project, especially since Alan Pardew reportedly had to beg Mike Ashley for funds for this transfer window. Besides, Ireland is basically a shorter Hatem ben Arfa with an attitude problem, and HBA is due back in less than a month anyway. I'd like to say that a change of setting could be what the kid needs, but isn't that what Villa thought?