According to Turkish outlet Aksam, Newcastle United are readying a £17.5m bid to bring Galatasaray star Garry Rodrigues to St James’ Park this summer.
The report claims that, after months of scouting, NUFC officials have contacted Galatasaray once again over the potential signing and are now set to make a bid which could see us break our record transfer deal (£17 for Michael Owen in 2005).
Now, it is quite clear that we’re admirers of Rodrigues, with it being confirmed on several occasions this year that club scouts have bee watching him, HOWEVER, I’m not buying this. Here’s why:
A) Our interest may be genuine, but I’m struggling to see why we’d pay £17.5m for a winger that’s not proven in any of Europe’s top leagues. Surely we’d just throw that sort of money at Kenedy if we were prepared to break out transfer record?
B) Turkish reports claimed that we’d had a £13m bid accepted for Besiktas’ skipper Oğuzhan Özyakup, however it turned out that this wasn’t true at all and that he wasn’t even a top target of Rafa’s. What can we take from that? Take Turkish reports with a pinch of salt.
C) Rodrigues does have pace to burn and bagged an impressive 10 goals and 11 assists on his way to helping Galatasaray win the title, but he’s turning 28 later this year. I know we should have it in us to spend big even if a player is 27 or over, but it wouldn’t be like Mike Ashley would it?!
You get the picture folks.
I reckon he’s a target if we don’t get Kenedy, but I see us walking away from any deal for Rodrigues (and rightly so) if it’ll involves us breaking our transfer record.
I think most NUFC fans would join me in saying that we’d prefer this sort of money to be spent on a top striker or securing Kenedy permanently?
