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.
If guehi didn’t want the move then it’s fine. Paul Mitchell was hired in July with the transfer window only open for another month I don’t think he’s really had a chance to do his job yet. If we struggle to sign players in January questions must be asked. I also don’t think we’re any weaker than last season. If you think about it we’ve just replaced ando with tonali and minteh never actually played for us. I actually quite like that we didn’t bow to pressure and overspend on guehi and I love seeing parish on TV trying to justify it I find it hilarious. I think because some fans and especially the southern media want to claim we’ve had a terrible window means we have to really get behind the team and prove them all wrong.
Shhhhhh(Quote)
The elephant in the room is PSR, the imbalance and corruption that now exists with the big 6 who are now a protected species after having taken full advantage of their position and excessive spending in the past.
Man City are squeaking now, Villa are making noises and there are other clubs with ambition like us who are being deliberately stifled.
Why is there no legal challenge to this outdated and ridiculous governance.
Joseph(Quote)
It makes me laugh listening to Geordies sounding outraged that Parish didn’t fall over himself to sell Guehi and Guehi wasn’t desperate to leave. Let’s face it Newcastle you’re not a big club, despite being owned by the largest wealth fund in the world!
David Hazelton(Quote)
Newcastle fan yells at cloud.
Chris K(Quote)
The amount of airtime Newcastle fans have given to failing to sign Marc Guehi and slagging off Parish is crazy. If a big club had gone in for him he’d have handed in a request. As it stands Newcastle is only a marginal step up.
Steve(Quote)