Marc Guehi – The questions that haven’t been asked after £70m Crystal Palace saga
Now that the window is closed, I can't help but question Marc Guehi’s ambition and/or desire to join Newcastle United this summer.
After starting his career at Chelsea, proving himself to be a very capable Premier League centre-back at Crystal Palace and showing superb form at the Euros, it felt like his time to move, especially when we read that he won't be signing a new deal at Selhurst Park as he approached the final 18 months of his contract (suggesting he doesn't see his medium to long-term future in South London).
He did show respect to his current club - a rare act in football these days - in refusing to hand in a transfer request, but a few things come to mind. Is he happy to stay in London? Is he waiting for a 'bigger' club to come forward in January or next summer?
Palace may be on a club-record 10-year run in the top flight, but they have never finished above 10th place and have never played in European competition. By all accounts, United had a stinker last season and still finished above them.
Surely, if you were keen on the move (as the press said all summer) you would sit down with your agent and hand in a transfer request, no matter how outside of your character it is?
Perhaps, as some quarters have suggested, Steve Parish is on a one-man moral crusade against our Saudi ownership despite taking sponsorship money from Saudi Egyptian Developers and a fellow part owner in John Texter who [allegedly] made swaths of his fortune off the back of young children mining lithium in Africa. Probably not then…
Mitchell and Howe must also take some of the blame for a failure to walk away from a deal that was clearly never going to happen especially after Palace sold Joachim Andersen to Fulham. There were so many red flags, but this one seemed especially pertinent. As for the supposed negotiating technique employed by Mitchell, it’s difficult to comment on when Parish moved the goalposts at every opportunity while he twerked in the national media trying to drum up a bidding war.
Ultimately, Guehi might simply not have wanted to move north (it’s cold up here remember) and decided to wait for next summer when his dramatically reduced value will more than likely bring a whole host of clubs to the table. What is undeniably true is that Palace will never get £70million for him again.
