Pardew: the search continues

Alan Pardew has confirmed that the deal to sign Emmanuel Adebayor is dead in the water - and that he has already turned his attentions elsewhere.

Pardew could have been forgiven for believing a deal for the Monaco striker was in the bag at the beginning of the week, only for Adebayor's club to perform a remarkable about-turn at the eleventh hour by insisting that they wished to retain his services - despite having already accepted a £6m offer from West Ham.

But despite the disappointment, Pardew is in no mood for curtailing his search - with alternative targets already being sounded out.

"We've set our sights high because of the quality we've already got in that area," said Pardew, talking earlier today.

"Monaco released the player for us to speak to and we'd got to the process of almost agreeing terms until they changed their mind - as they had every right to.

"But I'm a great believer in fate, and as one door closes another one opens - and we've got other targets."

Whilst the start of the Premiership season is now just a week away, the transfer window remains open until the end of August - although Pardew has accepted that making any new signings ahead of the season opener against Blackburn is now unlikely.

But rather than just seek one striker - as has been thought previously - Pardew insists that he will be looking for TWO more front men to complement his existing squad.

"We're in the process of bringing in maybe two strikers before the end of the transfer window," he added. "It's probably a bit tight for next week but we will certainly have a go.

"We feel we're strong in almost every department except up front, where we still need to strengthen a bit."

One of the two prospective candidates could be Czech forward Petr Mikolanda who is yet to be confirmed as a Hammer despite apparently agreeing terms with the club last week.

Other names suggested as possible targets in the past 24 hours include Tottenham's Frederic Kanoute - again - and 21-year-old Roma forward Giuseppe Scurto, who is also rumoured to be interesting Sunderland.