According to The Mail’s Craig Hope, Manchester United are finally beginning to reduce their demands over a loan move for Jesse Lingard.
He claims that they lowered the ‘survival bonus’ from £12m to £9m over the weekend and it’s believed that fee could drop even more today – suggesting negotiations over his proposed move to Newcastle United are FINALLY going in the right direction.
Hope also reveals that Lingard has told fellow players at Manchester United that he ‘would love to join Newcastle’ ahead of tonight’s 11pm deadline, insisting he is NOT putt off by our position in the Premier League.
Interestingly, he is good friends with Kieran Trippier – both derive from Greater Manchester and have become close mates since England’s run to the semi-finals of Euro 2018.
He also knows Dan Burn, having played alongside our latest January recruit during a loan spell at Birmingham in 2013/14.
This comes after The Athletic revealed this afternoon that we’d submitted a new improved loan bid for the 29-year-old, with David Ornstein also reporting that Ralf Rangnick remains happy for him to leave – despite Mason Greenwood’s arrest and Anthony Martial’s move to Sevilla.
Here’s what Craig Hope’s had to say about Lingard’s potential move to Tyneside:
Now Hugo Ekitike’s proposed move to St James’ Park looks to be off, due to the 19-year-old being reluctant to leave France in the middle of his first season in senior football, you’d like to think we’ll now pull out all of the stops to get this Lingard deal done.
With Burn and Targett set to be announced anytime soon, let’s hope we make it a hat-trick by bagging Lingard before 11pm tonight!
