Salomon Rondon has now completed a move to the Chinese Super League, with him now reunited with Rafa Benitez at Dalian Yifang.
That said, the narrative being shared by the media has now changed somewhat following this ‘big-money’ arrival in China.
No longer are we hearing how ‘criminal’ it is that we (Mike Ashley) refused to activate his £16.5m release clause after his 12-goal, 7-assist season at St James’ Park. Instead, several reporters are revealing why several Premier League sides (including Newcastle) felt both his demands and his agents demands were unacceptable.
As you can see below from Sky’s Pete Graves and the Chronicle’s Mark Douglas, it’s now being reported that his wage demands and the ‘hidden costs’ made any permanent move MUCH more than £16.5m:
I can see *some* logic in this given we’d be paying him huge wages to a 33/34 should he have agreed a four-year deal, however I still find it very poor and typical of Mike Ashley that we made little attempt to keep our player of the season.
After all, you can’t start complaining about money and how expensive a certain deal would be when we’ll happily pay £40m for an exciting but largely unproven Bundesliga talent, yet refuse to pay half that fee for a proven Premier League striker capable of keeping us up.
The fact FOUR Premier League clubs walked away from a deal for Rondon possibly speaks volumes, showing it wasn’t just us that refused to play ball, however that can’t be used to hide the fact Mike Ashley had absolutely no intention of bringing him back.
Either way, the big man looks set to be paid handsomely over the next few years and I can’t thank him enough for his efforts at Newcastle United over the past year.
All the best, Salomon!
I know we all have an intense dislike for Mike Ashley.
But stop writing slanted stories, do you know for fact that Newcastle didn’t try to keep him. Maybe just maybe like the other PL clubs we didn’t think he was value for what his demands were, it doesn’t matter that he had a great season otherwise your logic would be we should just pay a player what they demand.
I’m sure if you went in to work tomorrow and asked for crazy wages, your employer wouldn’t go ok then cos you worked well last year !!!!
I know it’s all about keeping the pressure on Ashley but we all know his preference for young players with a potential resale so stop peddling stories to justify another mistake from Ashley when it might not actually be if it is also a view held by other PL clubs.
David(Quote)