Two Players Newcastle United Should Sell This January – Including This £15m-Rated Attacker
The situation at Newcastle United is currently a hard one to keep track of. The Magpies are currently in the middle of a takeover saga and it seems like the bid by financier Amanda Staveley has not been answered by Mike Ashley who believes that it is not enough for him to sell.
However, in the press, he has been saying that there has been absolutely no bid at all, which the Staveley camp strongly deny. There has also been a suggestion that Staveley hasn’t actually got the required amount to buy the club up front and has been trying to add incentives to bring Ashley to the negotiating table.
The truth of the matter is we do not know what is really going on, and sometimes it seems like neither does Rafa Benitez who has said in recent days that he ‘doesn’t know’ his transfer budget. What is clear is that he will have to sell to get players in, and with a squad full of Championship level players, some clearly need to go out the door to give Rafa some breathing room.
One of the players who could be on the way out is Mo Diame, who has been playing in the heart of the Newcastle midfield with little success for a season and a half. He often looks off the pace and confused as to what he should be doing.
To play as a box-to-box midfielder in the Premier League, you need a lot of attributes which Diame does not seem to possess – the most obvious one being football intelligence. He can often be found misplacing a pass or running out of position. It may well be time for Newcastle to move him on to raise some much-needed funds.
Another player who looks like he might not have a future on Tyneside is Aleksandar Mitrovic. He has been left on the bench for most of the season, with Rafa preferring to go with Joselu and Dwight Gayle as his front two pairing. He has proven in the past that he can score goals in the Premier League and has also become a fan favourite at St James Park.
However, Rafa clearly doesn’t trust his ability to perform when required. The £15m-rated Mitrovic is one of the few players in the Newcastle squad who has a decent sell-on value, and therefore it is likely that Mike Ashley will be looking to sell the Serbian so that they can solve some more urgent problems that they have elsewhere in the squad.