You may remember the match at Bourdeaux. The result of the match was only 2-0, but we were comprehensively played off the pitch and was the root cause of this quote from Alan Pardew after the match:
The truth of it is that a lot of our young players who we played tonight, I was expecting a little bit more.
'We will have a good look at them now because I don't think the opportunity is going to come around for them again this season unless we really suffer like we did tonight in terms of who was available because I didn't leave anyone behind who was fit.
from the dailymail.co.uk
It was the catalyst for the massive January that we had, as well. Since then, Curtis Good, Mehdi Abeid, Conor Newton and Paul Dummet have seen new loan moves or extensions of existing loan deals, and now perhaps the most prominent young player of all is headed out for the rest of the season.
Sammy Ameobi, who has 14 appearances and 0 goals in all competitions this year, is headed down the road to local rivals Middlesbrough where he will hope to assist them in their promotion push in the Championship. Boro are currently 7th (one place and one point behind Brighton for the final promotion playoff spot) and if they end up successful with their promotion push would make for a third northeast team in the Premier League.
With our recent history against Brighton, I'll be cheering extra hard for 'Boro and Sammy to overtake them and win promotion over Gus Poyet's Seagulls.
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