:010: taken from teamtalk.com

Inverness hold Niculae talks

Inverness are holding talks with Romania international Marius Niculae and hope to sign the former Mainz striker.

Niculae, 26, was released by German side Mainz following their relegation from the Bundesliga.

The former Dinamo Bucharest and Sporting Lisbon player, who played for the Portuguese club in the 2005 UEFA Cup final, has made 28 international appearances and scored 12 goals.

Inverness admit they could be priced out of a move for Niculae by his wage demands, but director of football Graeme Bennett remains hopeful.

Bennett said: "We approached Marius and he has come over for talks.

"But his financial demands, based on what he can get elsewhere, may be too difficult for us to meet. We'll see."

Niculae was last capped against Colombia in May 2006.

linky

I hope we get him.  He could make a good partnership with McDonald or back-up to Bayne or Wyness

Certainly seems to be of a high pedigree. Would be a huge transfer coup if we could get him, hopefully his wage demands arent too excessive.

Isn't this an old story??

Pele Is God mentioned us approaching a Romainian who was also an ex Sporting Lisbon player last week and not being able to match his wage demands  :024:

Is he any good in defence, as it seems to escaped Charlie's and Grassa's notice that we have only 4 defenders?

He's immense in Champ Manager 99-00

Out our league IMO and now it is in the papers I'm sure there will be plenty of others sniffing about

If we got him I reckon we should put McAllister out on loan cause then then we would have more than enough strikers.

Isn't this an old story??

Pele Is God mentioned us approaching a Romainian who was also an ex Sporting Lisbon player last week and not being able to match his wage demands  :024:

i'm not sure, this is the first i'd heard of it. Popped up on teamtalk today so dont know when the story originated. Not reading too much into it yet, always interesting to read specualtion though

Is he any good in defence, as it seems to escaped Charlie's and Grassa's notice that we have only 4 defenders?

true, couple of defenders wouldnt go a miss, maybe Charlie is going for the 'we'll score more than you' approach to the game  :tic01:

Bit of ambition from our board it seems. Think this is a different player Kencar, the other internationalist was a midfielder.

Really hope they get him, but I suspect too expensive  :019:

Hate to be a killjoy  :019: but should this not perhaps be in the rumour mill

Hate to be a killjoy  :019: but should this not perhaps be in the rumour mill

it quotes Grassa as saying we are holding talks with the lad though, not really rumour is it

My mistake

Certainly hope its not a rumour anyway :004:

Hate to be a killjoy  :019: but should this not perhaps be in the rumour mill

it quotes Grassa as saying we are holding talks with the lad though, not really rumour is it

and thats why its not been moved

This would be a HUGE signing. I play football with a Romanian guy and he said that he has been following the story closley for some time now.

We have apparently been after him for a while and he has a very impressive CV and it was only an injury while at Sporting (if I mind right) that curtailed a very promising early career.

That is what I was told anyway.

Basically, if we signed this guy this would be an incredible signing for us.

This would be a HUGE signing. I play football with a Romanian guy and he said that he has been following the story closley for some time now.

We have apparently been after him for a while and he has a very impressive CV and it was only an injury while at Sporting (if I mind right) that curtailed a very promising early career.

That is what I was told anyway.

Basically, if we signed this guy this would be an incredible signing for us.

Agreed Romania have been producing alot of high quality players for a number of years now and its been going relatively unnoticed.

Wonder if this has anything to do with Hagi and Popescu, although I doubt it.

Have Hearts not been linked with him before?

http://www.mariusniculae.ro/

Quite an achievement to get him to fly to Inverness. Looks slightly better than Brewster and an even bigger signing than Paul Ritchie from Hong Kong on a free!!!

Nice thought but how could a club with our relatively limited resourses possibly satisfy the wage demands of a striker with such a pedigree in the prime of his career ?

here's a link to  a site which has a pic of the player who im sure was the one i seen earler today, it says for season 2007-2008 he is playing for ICT!!

http://www.romaniansoccer.ro/players/n/niculae_marius.shtml

Nice thought but how could a club with our relatively limited resourses possibly satisfy the wage demands of a striker with such a pedigree in the prime of his career ?

He looks a good player but he was released from his last club when they were relegated and while he played at Sporting he doesn't seem to have been a first choice (60 odd games in four seasons).  He does have a good record internationally and in romania, right enough though.

Hopefully he is looking for a fresh start to his career, possibly putting himself in the British shop window. 

He looks a good player but he was released from his last club when they were relegated and while he played at Sporting he doesn't seem to have been a first choice (60 odd games in four seasons).  He does have a good record internationally and in romania, right enough though.

Hopefully he is looking for a fresh start to his career, possibly putting himself in the British shop window. 

That sounds about right - looking at the website, you can see a definite decrease in appearances, goals and international caps as the years have gone by. Hopefully he may be looking to rekindle the form he had at the top of that page when playing for Dinamo Bucharest - 100 games / 43 goals ... also 8 uefa cup goals in 12 games (5 for Dinamo, 3 for Sporting) .....

He would be a quality signing, however, ICT may resurect his career and then he'll be off down the road to join the central belters....probably. :004:

Undoubtably, but at what price? :sillywave:

or he could get injured again