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Confusion still reigns on Dwight Gayle as Carlton Palmer recommends him to West Brom

3 years ago
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Dwight Gayle has now been recommended to West Brom.

Not for the first time, the Newcastle United striker finding himself linked with a return to the Baggies.

No wonder, as when he spent the 2018/19 season on loan at The Hawthorns, Dwight Gayle scored 24 goals in 34 Championship starts (plus six sub appearances).

Dwight Gayle not only top scorer but also voted the fans’ player of the year.

West Brom were relegated having conceded a horrendous 76 goals, 13 more than Sheff Utd and 23 more than Fulham. However, up front they had serious issues as well, whilst playmaker Pereira scored 12 Premier League goals, the top scoring strikers were Callum Robinson with six and Hal Robson-Kanu with five. Quite clearly West Brom needing goals to be added if they are to come straight back up.

Carlton Palmer may be the worst player to ever play for England (all 18 caps given to him during the disastrous Graham Taylor era) but I can’t disagree with his assessment on Gayle’s potential value to his old club (Palmer started his playing career at West Brom in the 80s).

Carlton Palmer speaking to This is Futbol:

“He [Dwight Gayle] has certainly got goals in him in that league [Championship], for sure, certainly got plenty of goals in him in that league.

“If you’re going to get promoted, you have got to get 87, 88 points, so you’re going to need goals.

“Dwight Gayle will get goals in that league all day long.”

West Brom will of course have parachute payments to help finance a promotion drive this coming season and whilst they are still set to announce a replacement for Sam Allardyce, any new boss would surely consider Dwight Gayle an asset to West Brom.

Whilst West Brom are still in a state of upheaval, at Newcastle United the chaos continues, with literally no communication to Newcastle fans about anything.

Whilst there have been media claims of new deals agreed with a host of players set to be out of contract in 16 days time (30 June 2021), no clarity given by the club at all on the likes of Schar, Dummett, Fernandez, Carroll and Dwight Gayle.

On Monday 29 March 2021 it was reported that Dwight Gayle has been offered a new three year contract by Mike Ashley.

The story coming from The Athletic, who said that the 31 year old had been offered the new deal on ‘reduced terms’ compared to his current deal.

Still, not bad if indeed Dwight Gayle had got another three years, seen as he will be just four months short of turning 35 when a three year deal would end (30 June 2024).

The Athletic stated that not only had Dwight Gayle been offered this three year extension, he had already signed it off as well.

Then on Friday 2 April, Newcastle United confirmed this Dwight Gayle contract story.

Carrying out his media duties ahead of the Tottenham home game, Steve Bruce was asked about the Gayle report.

The Newcastle United Head Coach confirmed that he understood Dwight Gayle had indeed been discussing a new contract with the club and that he (Steve Bruce) thought it had all pretty much been agreed, if not completely, with it just needing to be officially confirmed.

Interesting to see the exact words Steve Bruce used to BBC Newcastle, as it makes it sound like he has had very little (if anything!) to do with this new contract offer decision…:

“I think he [Dwight Gayle] is talking to the club and it [the new contract] is almost there, I believe. Good news for him.”

Over ten weeks later and still no confirmation or clarity from the club or Bruce on Dwight Gayle.

Steve Bruce refused to give Dwight Gayle any kind of a proper chance these past two years despite the striker scoring five goals under Bruce in just 14 PL starts and a fair few sub appearances. On 54 occasions Steve Bruce has named Gayle in his Premier League matchday 18 man squad but 40 of those the striker has been on the bench.

Since joining Newcastle United five years ago, Dwight Gayle has scored 11 goals in 73 Premier League appearances.

In that same time period, Dwight Gayle has scored 47  goals in 72 Championship appearances.

One theory put forward in many of the media reports that were stating a new three year contract had been agreed, was that it had been done to ensure that Newcastle United would get a transfer fee when / if Dwight Gayle does finally move on.

It is yet another situation that has more questions than answers about it for Newcastle fans.

Steve Bruce clearly has no intention of playing Dwight Gayle next season, having given him only four PL starts this season and opting to play at times with no recognised striker in games late in the season, rather than giving Dwight Gayle a start.

However, with claims of minimal money to be made available for new signings, will we end up with Dwight Gayle and others staying at Newcastle United, giving some kind of fake semblance of having a squad to fall back on if players such as Callum Wilson and ASM are unavailable?

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