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Highly rated Toon youngster transfers away from club

French youth international Olivier Kemen is one signature away from leaving Newcastle United.

Mark Runnacles/Getty Images

The Olivier Kemen Era at Newcastle United is over before it ever really began.  A product of the Graham Carr/Joe Kinnear partnership, Kemen was very young when he joined up with Newcastle (16 years old) from FC Metz but was one who was supposed to have a huge future with the club.  For whatever reason, however, his progress relative to where the club wanted him to be in order to start blooding him into the first team never matched up.  Stories of Kemen's discontent at his situation have bubbled under the surface for some time while talk of a loan move never materialized, whether that was on the club's end or the players.

The summer window saw rumors of that Kemen, a player with only reputation so far as we can tell, was wanted by AC Milan among others and subsequently saw those rumors fade away.  It would have been easy to assume that Kemen was to stay for at least several more months, but today's first day of Transfer Deadline Day-ish has seen his transfer back to France (this time to Lyon) all but done as he has passed his medical and is expected to sign a contract presently.  There is no report on what the transfer fee will be yet, but this looks to be the first of what could be several departures from Newcastle United on Transfer Day.