Newsletter

Get your daily update and weekly newsletter by signing up today!

News

French Club Won’t Sell Playmaker To Newcastle For Half Price

10 years ago
Share

The story of this summer transfer window, appears to be on the one hand Newcastle United desperately need to bring in quality strikers and a playmaker, but aren’t prepared to pay the price on the ticket.

[intlink id=”39156″ type=”post”]Back in January Clement Grenier\’s agent[/intlink] gave a number of reasons as to why a move didn’t happen to St.James’ Park, an obvious one was the money that Mike Ashley was prepared to pay to replace Yohan Cabaye.

Grenier’s agent commenting back then;

“As an agent of  Clement Grenier, I also have to ask myself: ‘Is Clément really worth half the value of  Yohan Cabaye?’

Beyond all the reasons that led us to decline the offer of Newcastle, the conditions of the deal did not seem fair to me with regards to Clement.”

A bid of around £9m was reported to have been made by Newcastle, less than half the Cabaye fee received. With claims that United have offered again to pay around that for one of France’s rising young midfield stars, no wonder ex-NUFC star Olivier Bernard was pessimistic when speaking to the Chronicle;

“For the money that is been spoken about, it is never going to happen.

“I think that if he goes it will be for £20m and it could even be a Champions League team.

“It will be a surprise for me if he goes to Newcastle, sadly it could be 90% no for Grenier to go to Newcastle.

“The problem at Newcastle is that when the club finished fifth they didn’t invest, now it is a whole lot harder for them to attract players.

“We haven’t done enough to attract players, they want to see a club that is playing in Champions League or even Europa League.”

What Bernard saying is obviously common sense and it is still unbelievable that Ashley refused to invest on the back of that breakthrough fifth position.

At 23 Grenier has his whole career in front of him, whereas Cabaye turns 29 this coming season, and is worth a lot closer to Bernard’s valuation than what Newcastle are said to be offering.

French clubs clearly aren’t going to fall any longer for the first bid that comes in for their best players, where that leaves Newcastle United in the transfer market under Ashley is unknown.

Share

If you would like to feature on The Mag, submit your article to contribute@themag.co.uk

Have your say

© 2024 The Mag. All Rights Reserved. Design & Build by Mediaworks