Newcastle United have been long-term admirers of Malick Thiaw.
NUFCBlog was the first to report on Newcastle’s interest in the German international way back in June 2023, and once again last summer as we worked on a deal for the AC Milan centre-back before ultimately pursuing Marc Guehi instead.
Last week, we shared another NUFCBlog exclusive, revealing that Newcastle were back in for the 23-year-old defender as our bid to sign a new right-sided centre-back brought us back to the former Schalke star, who has been continually watched by club scouts over the past two seasons.
This information has now been backed up by Fabrizio Romano, who confirmed our story on Tuesday afternoon in an update of his own in the last hour.
He reports that Newcastle are set to approach AC Milan over a deal, with talks set to follow between the two clubs over a potential transfer.
Thiaw rejected a move to Como last month after the Serie A side agreed a £21.5m deal with Milan, with reports suggesting the player would only leave for a club offering European football.
However, since then, it seems his value may have increased now new boss Max Allergi has been impressed by the defender since taking over at the San Siro, with Thiaw impressing in recent pre-season meetings with Liverpool and Arsenal.
As we revealed last week, Newcastle had club officials keeping a close eye on Thiaw during those games last month, although it’s not clear if any informal discussions were held at the time to sound out a potential move.
🚨⚫️⚪️ Understand Newcastle are set to approach AC Milan for Malick Thiaw.
Talks will follow as Thiaw is already an important player for Max Allegri after Como deal off in July.#NUFC will try to open discussions over price soon. pic.twitter.com/WUFQpPI9Qp
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 5, 2025
This is classic 2025 NUFC. If there’s a way we can make a deal harder or more expensive for ourselves, you better believe we’re going to do it! Could’ve saved £10m if we’d gone for him sooner, and it’s not like we hadn’t scouted him or didn’t know we needed him.
I do think he’d be a good signing though. We could certainly do a lot worse, and everyone knows we’re not getting Guehi. Perhaps we could move swiftly and just get this one done? I imagine Thiaw will be keen. Then again, what am I saying, we all know how the club operates.
Ian(Quote)
IMO: the Club leak interest in Thiaw (again), to put the anxiety into Palace, so they play nice over Guehi.
BA(Quote)
What happened to the days of signings being announced without anyone knowing we were interested. If we want to steal a march on the septics we need to sack whoever is leaking.
Peaco(Quote)
Think it’s difficult to keep things under wraps these days with the media the way it is plus what they don’t know they speculate.
Joseph(Quote)