Crystal Palace owner Steve Parish has admitted that he expected Marc Guehi to sign for Newcastle this summer – but the departure of Joachim Andersen and an injury to Chadi Riad made it impossible for him to sell the defender.
In a transfer saga that seemed to last a lifetime, Newcastle were believed to have bid near enough £70m for Guehi; a fee that should have been enough to secure the England international.
However, Parish claimed that as the negotiations continued on to deadline day, it became ‘impossible’ for the South London club to sell both of their starting centre-backs in one window, especially with such little time left.
Parish told Sky Sports: “”I don’t think the window worked out exactly the same format that we thought it would. Maybe we thought at the beginning it’d be more likely that Marc Guehi went and we kept Joachim Andersen.
“We accepted that bid [for Andersen] which then made it very difficult really to sell both of our starting centre-backs in one window.
That’s not to say it wasn’t still an outside possibility that we got to the right number but then Chadi Riad got injured. That doesn’t look quite as bad as it seems but it still left us very light and really made it impossible for us to consider at that point.”
🗣️ "I don't think the window worked out the exact same format we thought it would"
Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish discusses his club's incomings and outgoings during the transfer window 🎤 pic.twitter.com/spNgklbx7c
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) September 3, 2024
Parish then continued, openly admitting that Palace would’ve been happy to deal with Newcastle:
“We want to be a destination club in the end. That’s what we want to be. We want to be playing in the Champions League, but the reality is we don’t right now. That’s what players want to achieve in their career and we respect that and we respect the fact that sometimes we’re going to be a pathway to that.
“We’re proud that Michael’s [Olise] gone to Bayern Munich. We want to be selling to the top clubs or to clubs like Newcastle who have got great aspirations and have recently been in the Champions League so we have to manage all of those things.
“We won’t get really great young talent come to us if they think they’re going to be stuck. Equally, the players have got to realise that the club comes first and we have got to do our best to make sure that the club thrives.”
Newcastle were ultimately left empty handed and while it wasn’t necessarily a lack of funds that prevented the deal from going through, those above should have had alternative options prepared for this very scenario.
We now must make do with Fabian Schar, Dan Burn and Emil Krafth as our centre back options until January unless either Sven Botman or Jamaal Lascelles recover quicker than expected from their ACL injuries.
Fair play to Parish – he’s exactly how we’d have wanted Ashley to run NUFC if we are being honest.
Accepts that it’s impossible to compete with the biggest clubs, but continues to put money into the squad & grow the club to the best it can be.
I don’t imagine they will ever get offered £70m for the player again but he made the tough call not to sell – for the benefit of the team over the bank account.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Each to their own I guess as to how characteristics are valued. Doing what’s best for palace is to be admired and he outsmarted Mitchell, but the manner in which he did so was less impressive. His ongoing publicity seeking brings no credibility to his patta.
References to Ashley are ironic as he seems a slightly more polished version
Jonesy(Quote)
Parish is talking a load of rubbish he could have accepted NUFC reasonable bids long before the Anderson bid was made and then kept Anderson.He would have received a larger fee for Guehi and he did sign Centre backs Chalboah from Chelsea and Maxence Lacroix from Wolfsburgas well as the unfortunate Chadi Road who was injured immediately.Truth is he wanted to get as much as he could for Guehi(fair enough )but now it will backfire because his value diminishes every transfer window.Secondly I’m sure he doesn’t want NUFC to become a power and the big six and the Premier league are exactly the same .
Kenneth Walker(Quote)