Rob Lee believes Newcastle will be willing to buy Joe Willock for £15m this summer – but fears £20m will be “too much” if that’s the price Arsenal hold out for.
The former NUFC midfielder also believes we’ll have huge trouble selling Joelinton if we decided to cut our losses this summer, believing we wouldn’t even get £10m for our £40m club record signing.
As for Willock, Bruce has made it clear that he wants to bring the 21-year-old back to St James’ Park this summer, with recent reports suggesting Arsenal’s asking price could be upwards of £20m if he continues impressing.
Here’s what Lee told This is Futbol about both, starting with the Gunners loanee:
“I think for what he’s done in the game £20m is too much, but that’s the price you have to pay sometimes.
“I would say at £15m, we buy him.
“He has potential to get better, which is good but people are starting to demand astronomical prices for average players.”
Lee then had this to say when asked about Joelinton’s future ahead of this summer’s transfer window – believing we’d struggle to get a quarter of the fee paid if we decided to give up on the Brazilian:
“He’s played brilliantly but like I’ve said, he looks great between the boxes but we don’t need him between the boxes because he’s a £40 million striker apparently,
“So, we need him to be scoring and creating goals.
“If you tried to sell him you wouldn’t get £10 million for him.
“The thing is, where would you play him because I’ve watched him and I would love for someone to tell me what his best position is.”
Personally, I feel Willock would be well worth £20m if that’s the price Arsenal set this summer.
After all, you don’t get many young, athletic and English goalscoring midfielders for that sort of price in this day and age!
That said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we pushed for a deal around the £15m mark…
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