Following the news that Dwight Gayle is set to join Stoke City, Sky Sports‘ Keith Downie has revealed that the striker will be leaving for FREE.
This means no transfer fee will be added to Eddie Howe’s summer budget, but the North-East reporter admits it will free up space on the wage bill and make room in his squad for another arrival up top.
Downie reports that Watford and Middlesbrough were also ‘considering’ the former Palace man, who will become the fifth departure of the summer after Isaac Hayden (Norwich), Freddie Woodman (Preston), Jeff Hendrick (Reading) and Ciaran Clark (Sheffield United).
After signing for us back in 2016, the now 32-year-old played a huge role in guiding us back to the Premier League, scoring 23 goals in 32 games in our promotion season.
Since then, Gayle has endured a lack of game time at Premier League level and one successful loan at West Brom – a stint that saw him tipped to leave for £20m the summer he returned from another prolific stint in the second tier.
Instead, for the past three years we have been paying the forward a reported £40,000-per-week to effectively sit on the bench and fade away, allowing him to depreciate considerably.
It’s yet another example of poor decision making by our previous owner, who was consistently looking for ways to cut corners and ensure he would pay the bare minimum to keep us afloat.
