According to reports in France, Newcastle were ‘in talks’ to sign highly-rated Lyon defender Moutcar Diakhaby, however the player has agreed to join Valencia instead after we failed to even make an offer for the 21-year-old.
France Football state that ourselves, Everton and Valencia were all talking to the 6ft 3′ centre-back, however they claim that, despite our interest, we didn’t end up making any formal offer to sign him – unlike Everton and Valencia who followed up their interest as you’d expect any normal club to do:
Newcastle United were also in talks to sign Mouctar Diakhaby, but did not make an offer as Everton did https://t.co/9H5v8nrVlV
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) June 27, 2018
Despite a £13m offer from Everton, he’s now agreed to join Valencia instead, meaning we were probably ‘interested’ to an extent, but not for that price – with us more than likely to replace Mbemba on the cheap if and when we do.
This really does sum up our approach to sign players this summer. Show subtle interest but don’t bother making any sort of attempt to sign the said player.
I didn’t expect us to replace Mbemba with a £13m centre-back in fairness, but this still proves that we really do need to pull our finger out.
Yet another anti-Ashley propaganda piece.
How many players have we been “linked” to but nothing happens?
Are we not trying,or is it possible – and I’m just guessing here – that this is just another completely fictitious story created to get hits on a European website?
Newcastle have for years been the go-to club when it comes to promoting mediocre players looking for a move to bigger clubs. From that point of view we are a big club.
It’s sad to see that you’ve suggested that we didn’t follow up on “talks” that we don’t know even existed, following a dubious link, on a player that you yourself said you would not expect us to buy, to replace a player who hasn’t left yet, who doesn’t even need to be replaced because he couldn’t even get on the bench – all just so you could have a dig at Ashley.
You’re starting to sound like Chris Waugh who complained yesterday that we haven’t replaced Merino – another player who hasn’t actually left yet.
Brrrian(Quote)