News tonight that Newcastle have not given up on signing one of Graham Carr’s long term targets – Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette – and have now tabled a record £25M bid for the French international striker.
It’s just a pity we couldn’t have saved £20M and bid say £5M for Charlie Austin and maybe we could have persuaded the proven Premier League striker to move to Newcastle rather than to Southampton.
Alexandre Lacazette – is he worth £25M?
The news is in the Sunday People and of course as we saw today with a number of good chances missed in the 2-1 win over West Ham, that we still need a top striker to convert the many chances we are now making.
The news is that Lyon will likely accept the bid, but Lacazette has already made it known he only wants to leave his French club for a big club that plays in the Champions League – and that’s not today’s Newcastle United.
Lacazette has also pledged to stay at Lyon this month, but we’ll see if other bigger clubs come after him if the bid is accepted – and if they do we have to believe they will beat Newcastle to the 24 year-old French striker.
One of the reasons a number of big deals could be done this month is that with the new three year £5B Premier League rights deal starting in June, it’s thought the price of players will jump in the summer – so now may be a good time to get good players in.
The People report then suggests that if we cannot get Lacazette then the club will turn to Stoke’s Mame Biram Diouf, who has had trouble getting his place at the Britannia Stadium this season.
The 28 year-old 30 times capped Senegal International has been on the bench most of this season and may be surplus to requirements at Stoke, but we find this a strange choice – always assuming the news is accurate.
The player was at Manchester United from 2009 through 2012 and then moved to Hannover in Germany before signing on at Stoke in the summer of 2014 on a four year deal.
While he’s been at Stoke he’s scored 15 goals in 53 appearances for the Potters.
What do you think?
Comments welcome.
23 comments so far
JamesToon
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:56 PM
Comment #1£25m is massively overpriced imo he’s unproven and isn’t showing the form from last season, sure yeah he’s the kind of striker we need in terms of pace but really can’t see Ashley forking out yet another massive amount of money on another French player after what’s happened with thauvin/rivière/Gouffran/cabella
Thump
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:57 PM
Comment #2£25m? If we’re going to pay that we might as well pay the extra £5m and go for Batshuayi.
Hell, for that price we could get a forward who we know could score goals in the prem.
optimistic prime
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:58 PM
Comment #3On saviet, yes he looked a bit off the pace but he came into a game played at a high tempo with some real slick play.
Tha majority of expirienced EPL players would have struggle to make a impact for 10-15mins until they’d caught the pace of the game.
Looked decent considering IMO
Belfast
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:59 PM
Comment #4Bullshit
JamesToon
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:59 PM
Comment #5Just get Remy on loan or Berahino
SUTTY1978
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:04 PM
Comment #6Missed seeing any of the game this afternoon.
Just watched Football first on sky.
Mitro was bloody brilliant I thought, on another day he could have at least bagged a hatrick.
Wijnaldum probably had his best match, played better in this game than when he scored four against Norwich. Need to press on and take the confidence into the next game.
Shelvey was quality as well, think he makes a lot of space for others and picks passes that none of our other midfielders have been able to. Makes Colback look like an U11 player playing in a mens team when in next to him.
Didn’t see much of Saviet in the extended highlights, see how he does in the next game. Came on when West Ham were pushing so difficult position to come into in those circumstances.
JackButler
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:05 PM
Comment #7Another Sunday fiction special
JackButler
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:08 PM
Comment #8Sunderland fans have set up a donations webpage “Send Kirchoff back to Germany” gofundme and are looking for £500 🙂
croftus5678
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:09 PM
Comment #9very good player theres no doubt but personally i’d rather go upto 15mil for austin.
Belfast
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:11 PM
Comment #10Think their heed case owner probably makes up these stories to score some brownie points with his own fans to be honest.
Look everyone we turned down 25 million.
NoahJ
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:11 PM
Comment #11this is clearly untrue; he couldn’t have made it any clearer that he doesn’t want to come.
Fine by me- he’s had a poor season, and he’s worth around £15m
if we’re going to spend £25m, spend it on berhaino and a decent left back
Belfast
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:12 PM
Comment #12We were said to be mystified at reports of an 18 million bid being made about a week ago.
p
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:13 PM
Comment #13A lot of people just assume by paying 4m or more Austin would come to nufc. That’s just wrong.
I think qpr could have got more but I don’t believe he would have come to us.
magpiesi
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:13 PM
Comment #14If we wait until the summer every premier team can pay that sort of fee so now is the time to get a bit quality maybe 18-20m
Imo we should go for Doumbia on loan from Roma with the fee agreed for the summer or based on games.
Remy will be made to stay at Chelsea till the summer for cover.
GeordieTwo
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:16 PM
Comment #15Brilliant display of passing by Shelvey. That’s what I was hoping to see. We should start to climb the table now but still need a true finisher and a CB.
croftus5678
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:21 PM
Comment #16@13 p
atm no other prem team has gone in for austin (no concrete bids) and we all know he wants back in the prem !
i’d say as it stands of today we would have a brilliant chance of getting him.
and is berahino what we are looking for ? he’s not exactly a line leader and is packing a bit of weight with a fair bit of attitude ! the lad would be great if we played with 2 strikers but i’m not sure its what we are looking to play.
p
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:24 PM
Comment #17Croftus, I think that is naive, his agent would know who was interested and where he wanted to go.
magpiesi
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:31 PM
Comment #18I Wonder if smc is trying to change to a 4312 formation with Perez left ish and a bit deeper. Not sure where the rumoured Townsend would fit but he has a eye for goal likes to shoot and go past players and maybe alongside mitro could do well.
croftus5678
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:33 PM
Comment #19@17 p
we will be able to tell come the end of the window as his agent can not do anything if those teams dont come in for him !
i agree he can do what he pleases and will have his pick to a degree if his contract runs out but if anyone inc ourselves was serious about him being there no1 target there would have been contact by now.
123 Dummet Time
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:44 PM
Comment #20Adebayo to aid with Mitrovic
The overrated Frenchman
Jan 16, 2016 at 11:48 PM
Comment #21Agree with Croftus5678, we should be pursuing Austin. He’s done nowt at Soton and they’d be happy to get their money back.
cornishman
Jan 17, 2016 at 12:01 AM
Comment #22Austin has signed for Southampton. He was never coming north he has an academy in Berkshire to nourish. Wold have been a snip at 4m though
123 Dummet Time
Jan 17, 2016 at 1:08 AM
Comment #23A loan move for bony?