According to the Northern Echo, Rafa Benitez is now pleading with Mike Ashley to finalise a deal for Miguel Almiron, however a move could now be ‘shelved’ with the NUFC owner likely to look at a ‘cut-price’ alternative.
To make matters worse, the story states that a ‘framework’ has been agreed to sign the Paraguayan – with us only needing Ashley’s seal of approval to complete the deal – as well as Almiron himself showing a ‘strong desire’ to complete a move to St James’ Park next month.
Here’s a snippet from the Northern Echo’s latest piece:
RAFAEL BENITEZ will urge the Newcastle United hierarchy to push through a club-record deal for Miguel Almiron – whether takeover talks progress in the next couple of weeks or not.
Newcastle have agreed the framework of a deal that would see Almiron leave Atlanta United to move to St James’ Park when the transfer window reopens at the start of next month, but Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley are still to give the go-ahead for the transfer to be completed.
Newcastle’s head of recruitment, Steve Nickson, flew to the United States last week to meet Almiron and his representatives, and the Paraguay international is understood to have expressed a strong desire to move to Tyneside.
Almiron looks a real talent and it’s clear that he’s high on Rafa’s priority list in January, so let’s hope something comes of this before long.
One issue (and it’s a big one) is Ashely will be reluctant to spend big IF he’s about to sell the club, so I’d imagine any movement on this front would indicate that a sale may be in place.
If he doesn’t sell, however, it feels like we have next to no chance here – with any deal likely to smash our club record fee.
This would not surprise supporters, it is simply what Ashley has been doing for years. Just last transfer window Rafa wanted Rondon early, but had to rely on a loan with Gayle moving to WBA, had he been able to buy Rondon he could have kept Gayle and unload Joselu.
As long as Ashley has control we will never break our record priced player transfer.
So it looks like another cheap buy or a freebee. Not that bad if its as good as Ki.
For me Im not expecting Rafa being able to bring in any new squad members.
But as usual I will be there cheering on any team that play in tbe famous B&W stripes.
I never buy anything inside the ground, I take a flask of coffee along with something to snack on.
Brian Hall(Quote)