With Stoke City sitting second bottom with just two games to go, it’s looking more and more like several of their star players will be sold this summer if they drop into the second tier – and one that will almost certainly be on Benitez’s radar is Badou N’Diaye.
Why you may be wondering? Well, here’s a bit of background to it..
As confirmed by Sky Sports and the Chronicle, the Senegalese midfielder was a player being watched by Newcastle prior to his January move to Stoke (see here to read Sky’s piece highlighting this).
Fully expecting us to look at Badou N'Diaye if Stoke go down.
Both Sky Sports & Chronicle credited us with interest prior to his January move to England. He's impressed since in a poor Stoke team & has a buy-out clause if they are relegated. #nufc #scfc pic.twitter.com/IOBjoOEVD4
— Black&WhiteBarmy (@BlackWhiteBarmy) May 1, 2018
He’s a player we are said to have scouted over the past year (during his time with Osmanlispor and Galatasaray), and someone Benitez was regularly linked with both in the summer of 2017 and in January just gone.
We ‘missed out’ thanks to an unorganised approach to the January window, but he’s looked at home in the Premier League since making a £14m switch from Galatasaray to Stoke, , being one of the few players who’s stood out in Paul Lambert’s Championship-bound side.
He’s looked like a real hard worker, he gets stuck in, has an eye for goal and looks the sort of box to box midfielder who could add healthy competition to our midfield (also being able to operate as a number 10).
It’s also been revealed by Galatasaray reporter Mehmet Ozcan that he’s got a few admirers in the Premier League already (should Stoke go down), with him stating, “I know three clubs from the Premier League want him.”
Could Newcastle be one of these three clubs? Time will tell, but I’d like to bet we are..
Why because we were linked with him before and some twit on Twitter is looking for attention if he’s not good for a side that’s as good as relegated then he’s not good enough for us. He looks like a poor mans Diame to many make any old nonesense up
Texas(Quote)