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Who Is This 26-year Old Defender That Newcastle United Are Linked With Everything You Need To Know

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Newcastle have their sights firmly set on promotion from the Championship this year at their first attempt. Rafa Benitez was astonishingly busy in the summer with 14 players arriving at St James park as he looked to completely overhaul the squad that saw them relegated from the Premier League.

One area he is still looking to improve on is defence and it has been reported that Newcastle were spotted this weekend at Lech Poznan’s  fixture with Wisla Krakow to watch Hungarian defender Tamas Kadar.

Kadar is a name that may already be familiar to the Newcastle faithful having signed him on the 18th of January 2008 aged just 17. This was also the day that hero Kevin Keegan was unveiled for his second stint as manager.

For the first few seasons, Kadar found first team appearances difficult to come by as Newcastle looked to develop the highly rated teenager. However it was on their relegation to the Championship in 2009 that saw him get his first taste of first-team action as manager Chris Hughton saw his potential and played him in 16 matches that season, largely thanks to injuries to Steven Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini.

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However, after helping Newcastle towards promotion, he struggled to get into the team again when the club resumed life in the Premier League. His time at Newcastle was blighted by injuries and just couldn’t stay fit enough to dislodge Taylor and Coloccini from the first team. Looking back on his time at Newcastle, he said: “When I was at Newcastle I was very young but I tried to fit into English football. It’s not easy, especially when you have injuries. Everybody knows I was fighting to stay fit but every year I had some very bad injuries.”

However, he moved back to Hungry to build his career via an unsuccessful stint in the Eredivisie with Roda JC and this saw him recognised by his national team again. From then he hasn’t looked back.

He has most recently been plying his trade in Poland with top Polish side Lech Poznan, where he has been able to gain Europa and Champions League experience. But it was Hungary’s impressive Euro 2016 campaign that started attracting the attention of the scouts, with Ajax and Real Betis also reportedly looking at the £2million rated star.

Kadar has build a reputation for being a solid left sided defender, capable of playing at both left back and centre back. He is comfortable in possession of the ball and as seen in Euro 2016, he is solid defensively too.

Newcastle scouts must have kept an eye on his career for them to still be interested in signing him, which means they liked what they saw when he was a Newcastle player. Unfortunately for him, it sounds like he got his opportunity at just the wrong time. But now, Newcastle fans may finally get to see the player that held so much promise 8 years ago.