According to reports in France, Nice striker Alassane Plea is now ‘ready’ to complete a move to Borussia Mönchengladbach after the Bundesliga side made an offer of £20.5m ‘plus bonuses’ for the Frenchman.
With 21 goals in all competitions, the 25-year-old was Nice’s top scorer across the 2017/18 Ligue 1 season and it’s since been confirmed by The Chronicle that we made a £20m bid to sign him last week.
That offer appears to have been unsuccessful, with us told to up our bid if we wish to have any chance of signing the striker, however it seems as though the Germans may be about to beat us to it.
Here’s a snippet from Get French Football News‘ latest update on the striker, suggesting that Plea is now nearing a move to the Bundesliga – not to the Premier League with NUFC:
‘OGC Nice striker Alassane Pléa appears to be nearing a move to Bundesliga side Gladbach, who made a new €23m plus bonuses offer for the player earlier today, according to Le 10 Sport.
‘Newcastle United remain interested in the player, but Pléa is understood to be ready to move to the German outfit.’
If true, this would be another frustrating one to take for Rafa – especially when it doesn’t sound like it’ll take THAT much more than £20m (our initial bid) to sign him.
There’s still time for us to up our bid, but this makes you wonder if we’ll look to Salomon Rondon instead – who’d cost a little less than Plea given his £16.5m release clause.
It wouldn’t surprise me given how Mike Ashley tends to operate, although it may make more sense to pay the extra £5m and sign Plea – a younger, more highly-rated striker who has the greater potential to excel in the Premier League.
Time will tell, but we do need to pull our fingers out and start paying the going rate if we want to sign any of Rafa’s striker targets this summer. They don’t come cheap.
Tight fat bA5tad.
Porciestreet(Quote)
good god does anyone really believe we put an official bid of 20 million???
mactoon(Quote)