According to The Athletic, Newcastle will ‘listen to offer’ for Christian Atsu and Yohsinori Muto this summer.
They have also reported in a recent piece that the club may also cash in on Fabian Schar, stating he was a player we were considering selling prior to lockdown as he enters the final 12 months of his contract.
While Atsu and Muto are forgotten men who would not be missed based on their complete lack of game time of late, a move for Schar would be met with a mixed reaction – even if he has looked out of sorts and relatively disinterested since football returned.
The Athletic’s Chris Waugh has also shared the latest on Valentino Lazaro’s future.
He reveals that Inter Milan are keen to sell and may now agree to cash in at a lower fee than the £20m option in his current deal at Newcastle, but believe a permanent move looks unlikely based on A) his lack of starts under Steve Bruce and B) the fact his likely price tag would eat into our summer budget too much for a potential squad player.
That said, The Athletic do report that the door has not been closed on another loan deal, suggesting Inter could agree to a similar arrangement IF this one included an obligation to buy next summer.
With that in mind and the fact Christian Atsu and Yoshinori Muto could be on their way after playing just 12 minutes between them since football returned, Lazaro could yet be a player we pursue this summer given our shortage of attacking options.
Inter Milan seem keen to sell after recently spending £36m on Dortmund’s Hakimi and Lazaro may yet be keen to stick around IF he is given more first-team assurances – although it would not surprise me if he ends up completing a move back to Germany, with RB Leipzig a club who tried to beat us to his signature back in January.
Interestingly, The Athletic also claim that the 24-year-old’s representatives would ‘welcome the opportunity to discuss his future with prospective new owners’, so it seems the door isn’t completely closed just yet for the talented Austrian.
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