As reported by The Irish Examiner, Newcastle are now ‘favourites’ to sign Inter Milan’s teenager Kevin Zefi as our search for the world’s best youngsters continues.
Zefi left his boyhood club Shamrock Rovers just two years ago to make the move to Italy and has represented the Republic of Ireland at U15, U17 and U19 level.
However, with just one year left on his contract with the Serie A club, the 18-year-old is set to find a new team this summer and it seems Newcastle are keeping a close eye on his situation.
As the Irish paper highlights, Dan Ashworth has already brought two of Zefi’s Ireland Under-19s teammates to the club – Alex Murphy and Reece Byrne. This would certainly help in getting him settled and suggests our sporting director has good links in Ireland when it comes to emerging talent.
With teenage talent Yankuba Minteh already arriving this summer from Danish side Odense, this would not be the first U21 signing we’ve made this summer as expanded scouting network continues to grow.
Sadly this appears to be some sort of “harvesting” program, where we buy young talent t o sell on in a couple of years time.
Personally I would have preferred to see us buying youngsters who will make the first team.
BykerBill(Quote)
We won’t know for a few years what the intention is. Certainly some will be sold, but the stated aim is to save money on first team spending, which is why we got Dan Ashworth from Brighton who do exactly that.
PremAndUp(Quote)