Newcastle United could have a trick up their sleeve when it comes to freeing up funds for new players.
Most fans have accepted the fact that we will be looking to shop in the bargain basement once again this summer.
The COVID-19 crisis has plunged most clubs into a state of financial confusion, with loan moves and free transfers expected to be rampant throughout the football world during this off-season.
A measly £30m has been reported as being the budget set by Ashley this time around, and as is always the case, you can bet that this figure is to include wages, agent fees, and all the other third party expenditure that goes into a deal.
When news last week that Jeff Hendrick was all but set to become a Newcastle player on a free transfer, one of my followers tweeted me highlighting that no one is ever ‘free’, with the midfielder’s wage packet over the next few years something Mike Ashley will no doubt factor in.
With that in mind, Yoshinori Muto and Henri Saivet are two players on our books who – if sold – could bolster our spending power and free up a significant amount of space on our wage bill.
It may come as a surprise to fans, but Japanese flop Muto earns a whopping £50,000 a week (according to The Chronicle) to barely make the matchday squad – placing him as one of the clubs top earners. A £9.5m transfer fee and £5.2m in wages since his 2018 arrival means that we have paid almost £15m for his services up until now – and have just one top flight goal to show for it.
Saivet’s figures are even more shocking, with the Senegalese international costing us £1.6m an appearance since joining in the final days of Steve McClaren’s awful tenure back in January 2016.
With him earning £35,000-per-week, the maths tells us he’s received £8.2m in wages over the past four and a half years. Factor in that fact he cost £5m to sign and that means we’ve paid out over £13m on a man that has only played five league games in a black-and-white shirt, making his transfer one of the worst in our club’s 128 year history.
Offloading both would free up almost £90,000 a week in wages and would give us a lot more room to play with in the market. It should be high up on our priority list and shouldn’t be allowed to go under the radar for another season.
Rob Elliot and Jack Colback were both released this summer and Bruce also revealed recently that Rolando Aarons and Achraf Lazaar are free to leave.
£28m in fees for a disastrous duo that have sadly done so little to contribute to our cause. Get rid, and use the resources to bring in what every Toon fan all knows we need.
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Saviet concerns me, when he has played the suggestion is that with a run of games he could be a decent player, something in the background is not right, is there a large fee looming if he plays more games???
As for muto he seems instinctively to get himself in decent positions yet again is never given a run????
I suggest the problem with these two players lies higher up in the club and that players and manager are powerless over this
Cc(Quote)
Sorry – How are we expected to take someone’s opinion seriously when they slag off a player but can’t even spell his name correctly?
I suppose that’s what you get when you use writers who use fan sites as their news source.
It’s SAIVET you muppet!
Not to mention such comments as “A measly £03m has been reported as being the budget set by Ashley”. Oh no, not £03m!
Then there’s “Newcastle United could have a trick up their sleeve when it comes to freeing up funds for new players.” So you believe that selling players to generate funds is “a trick up there sleeve”? If only we had known this earlier!
When you say something like “making his transfer one of the worst in our club’s 128 year history.” you really should quantify that. One of the top 3 worst? Top 5? Top 20?
So where do you think Joelinton ranks in that list?
In my own personal opinion Saivet and Muto (Muto in particular) are decent players who just have not been given a chance.
Benitez didn’t play Saivet, preferring to send him out on loan, and having had his confidence battered by that found it difficult to get into a Steve Bruce team that often appears to be picked by some form of lottery. I’d suggest Saivet suffered from being a McClaren signing, with Benitez’s pride not letting him play the guy.
Muto has looked promising when he has played, but unfortunately both Benitez and Bruce have appeared to prefer to play other forwards who couldn’t score instead. Muto is streets ahead of Gayle, with much better movement and more willingness to have a shot.
I don’t care if he was brought in to sell shirts in Asia, he wasn’t given a chance.
I appreciate this is just my opinion, but at least I took the time to spell the players’ names correctly.
BykerBill(Quote)
Hello folks. Long time no post. I did post a little on .com recently but there are too many blinkered keyboard warriors with nothing better to do than rant for hours a day about the same old stuff and attack anyone who doesn’t agree with them like they’re a mackem who personally stopped the takeover, is best mates with Mike Ashley and probably started COVID-19 too…
Anyway…bit of a misleading article. Clubs always have squad players who don’t play that many minutes and I’m sure they recouped some money from Saivet being sent out on loan too.
They just haven’t quite gelled with the squad and the PL. It happens…
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Oh well…from pathetic keyboard warriors to tumbleweed…looks like I can forget having good chats with fellow NUFC fans then…
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Not sure it’s misleading to be fair?
That is a shocking amount of money to pay in fees and wages when both McClaren, Benitez and Bruce have showed no interest in playing them.
The big contracts make it even worse too.
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
Dear me, that is quite a rant and some uncalled for abuse based on the odd typo…
Olly Hawkins(Quote)