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Salomon Rondon now free to sort out his next club

5 years ago
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Salomon Rondon will now fully concentrate on sorting out which club he will be kicking off the new season with.

Friday night saw the Newcastle loan striker and his Venezuela teammates up against Lionel Messi and Argentina, playing for the chance to meet Brazil in Tuesday night’s Copa America semi-final.

Venezuela had more possession (59% v 41%) and more corners (8 v 7) due to their territorial advantage.

However, where it mattered they were found lacking.

Salomon Rondon played the full 90 minutes but all he had to show for it at the end was a 44th minute yellow card as his teammates struggled to create chances. Argentina having 17 shots to only six for Venezuela, whilst for efforts on target it was seven for Argentina and only one for Rondon’s team (all stats via BBC Sport).

Argentina took two of those chances, with Lautaro Martinez scoring on 10 minutes and Giovani Lo Celso making sure of the win on 74 minutes.

Salomon Rondon following Miguel Almiron out of the tournament at the same stage, Paraguay unlucky to lose on penalties to Brazil, the Newcastle man playing well though and scoring his spot-kick in the shootout.

The NUFC squad are due back for pre-season on Thursday (4 July) and it remains to be seen how long Miguel Almiron will need in terms of recovery time after the Copa America, before joining the rest of the Newcastle squad.

As for Salomon Rondon, West Brom have said that they will definitely sell him this summer and they claimed Newcastle are still interested in buying him.

A media report in recent days claimed that Newcastle had offered £9.5m for the striker who has a release clause of £16.5m. Whilst I can believe Mike Ashley is capable of anything, I doubt whether this offer has been made. Not because I don’t think Ashley is capable of putting  in such a pointless offer so much below the asking price but rather because I just don’t see any way he would agree to buy Rondon and put him on a decent length contract, due to him set to be turning 30 in September.

After pre-season starts on Thursday, the end of the following week sees Newcastle flying off to China for the friendly tournament, playing Wolves on 17 July and then either Man City or West Ham on Saturday 20 July. Obviously it would be helpful if Almiron (and Rondon…) was on that plane heading out to China in terms of pre-season preparation but exactly what shape NUFC are in by that point remains to be seen.

As it stands, Miguel Almiron will be returning to a scene of absolute chaos on Tyneside.

Only six weeks to go until the new season and no manager, the ownership issue up in the air, seemingly no chance of player of the year Salomon Rondon being kept at the club, whilst we are now past the halfway point in the transfer window without a single new player brought in.

As it stands today, only 40 days until the summer 2019 transfer window closes.

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