KEVIN Keegan has set his sights on drafting a new leader into his back four, and the Newcastle United manager is confident the club’s standing will not allow the slim prospects of European football next season to stop him. Despite starting his second spell as Magpies manager with a clean sheet on Saturday, a talkative centre-back with experience of English football is top of Keegan’s shopping list before the transfer window shuts at midnight a week on Thursday. No transfers are expected in the next couple of days and, while acknowledging his squad is short on numbers, he is wary of not getting carried away. When Glenn Roeder wanted to bring such a defender to St James’s Park, Sol Campbell was the man he nearly signed. And the former England defender is once again in United’s sights, along with Bayern Munich’s Daniel van Buyten. “I’m not thinking of bringing Kevin Kilcline back, much as I like him,” Keegan joked. “But if I’m honest, they just need somebody to talk to them more middle to back. Steven Taylor will be a real leader and already he’s got leadership qualities. But if you look to the side of him you’ve got players new to the Premier League.” Stephen Carr and Abdoulaye Faye apart, the rest of United’s defence is made up of players with no experience of English football. It was a situation Sam Allardyce was anxious to avoid when he rebuilt the back line this summer, but when unable to attract any other Premier League-based players he instead signed David Rozehnal, Claudio Caçapa, Jose Enrique and Habib Beye. The list of big names Newcastle have been linked with in the last three days seems as fanciful as it is long. Shaun Wright-Phillips, Wayne Bridge, Scott Brown, Wes Brown, Micah Richards, Dimitar Berbatov, Richard Dunne, Alan Hutton, Nicky Shorey, Pascal Chimbonda and Michael Carrick are some of those who have been mentioned as possible targets. Keegan is adamant the club’s position in the bottom half of the table will not be a bar to landing players, but will be looking for quality rather than quantity. “I think we are a club who can go and get big players if they are the right players,” he said. “That’s absolutely 100%. We have to look at the situation in reality. A lot of players don’t move at this time of year. If they do it usually hasn’t been that successful. “We will be trying to fetch two or three players in but we will not fetch them in just to make the numbers up. They’ve got to be players who can play with what we’ve got and improve what we’ve got. But it’s no good collecting players. All the players here are useful to us.” Campbell’s name was once more linked after he pulled out of Portsmouth’s game against Derby County on Saturday. The 29-year-old’s absence was explained by a back injury, though some felt it was more than coincidence that he picked it up so soon after being told to “stop moaning” about Pompey’s failure to strengthen their squad by chief executive Peter Storrie. Campbell was keen to join Newcastle on a free transfer in the summer of 2006 but the club’s enthusiasm for the deal was thought to come more from the boardroom than the manager’s office, where Roeder was concerned by his age. However, since moving to the south coast Campbell’s form ended his seemingly enforced international retirement. Giant Belgian centre-back van Buyten played under Keegan at Manchester City in 2004, where the pair developed a mutual admiration. The former Marseille and SV Hamburg star’s agent, Christophe Henrotay, claims his client would be receptive to a £1.5m move to St James’s. That so much money has been put at Keegan’s disposal has been justified by his immediate impact on the club’s coffers. Yesterday morning there were just 200 part-season tickets still available at St James’s. | 
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