It was widely reported all summer that Benitez was frustrated by Newcastle’s failure to secure several of his top targets – and on of those was understood to be former Manchester City goalkeeper Willy Caballero.
The Chronicle wrote a piece recently, titled ‘Five players that Newcastle United wanted last summer but couldn’t afford’, and the reason revealed as to why a deal for Caballero broke down is quite concerning.
As the snippet from their piece states below, it is believed that NUFC chiefs ‘baulked’ at the Argentinian international’s £40,000 wage demands. Quite incredible really. It doesn’t come much cheaper than a free agent on £40k a week in this day and age!
“This deal has to be considered an absolute sitter for Newcastle in the summer window.
“Having made it clear he wanted a new goalkeeper, Rafa Benitez identified Caballero but with three goalkeepers already on the books, United baulked at the ex-Man City man’s £40,000 per week wage packet.
“Caballero ended up moving to Chelsea on a free transfer.”
No wonder Rafa was tearing his hair out. This perhaps sums up just what Benitez was dealing with over the summer.
Whilst 40k a week is still a huge sum of money, it must’ve been the lowest wage a senior player was picking up at City at the time, showing just how out of touch or unwilling Ashley really is with his finances at NUFC.
Given Elliot’s up and down start to the season, you can see why Rafa wanted a keeper. Darlow came in on Tuesday, but you get the feeling Rafa wants his own man brought in to be the new number one at NUFC.
Caballero, now at Chelsea, may not have been the long-term answer, but he’d have surely been an upgrade on our current options?
What’s absurd is that you don’t understand that five into three won’t go. Two of the existing four keepers we had on our books when the transfer window opened, had to be sold BEFORE a new keeper came in. Despite it being abundantly clear Krul had to go, he didn’t actually put pen to paper with another club until there was only a day or two left of the window. Rafa might have have made a last minute purchase of another keeper, but that would have meant four keepers. Loaning Woodford is not a good option, doesn’t save much on wages, and doesn’t free up a place in the squad, as he’s under 21. We would have had Elliott or Darlow on the books and one of them would have had to give up his place in the squad. It’s not the wages of the incoming keeper that are expensive, it’s that you are committed to the wages of the other two over 21 keepers unless you could offload them. Rafa couldn’t. And he had similar problems with the strikers, a full back and a midfielder. Two of these have squad numbers but clearly will never play a full game again under Rafa, unless hell freezes over. The other we are paying Prem wages to play with the kids. They must go in January to bring in new players.
potski(Quote)