Watford, West Brom, West Ham and Newcastle are all interested in signing Marseille's Cameroonian midfielder Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa, 22. (Sun) Newcastle are interested in signing Galatasaray midfielder Garry Rodrigues, 27, a Cape Verde international who is valued at £10m by the Turkish club. (Birmingham Mail) Newcastle keeper Martin Dubravka, 29, says his loan move to the club from Sparta Prague has "completely changed my life" and the Slovak hopes he can earn a permanent move to the Magpies. (Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/23/martin-dubravka-goalkeeper-newcastle-bournemouth Last one is an interesting article - suggests Rafa may have chosen him for his footwork and ball skills (a la Pepe Reina). Just another example of the great man's knowledge and foresight (@Free-Dor )
Dubravka also talks a good game, so let's hope his debut wasn't a flash-in-the-pan and he keeps a clean sheet against Bournemouth.
More concerning is Chelsea's interest in Jamaal Lascelles... https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...ks-to-bloster-defence-in-summer-a3773141.html
Yes and no. One thing I do agree with Free-dor about is that I think Ashley will make money available if it comes in. I really like Lascelles but if Chelsea are interested then given he's 24, English, our captain and has plenty of years on his contract I'd have thought they'd start the bidding at £30m+ and we'll look to push it upwards. I would like to keep most of our current players and build on the team (if we stay up) but we haven't got anyone I would look at as irreplaceable (though Lascelles is admittedly close to that).
It would be folly to assume anything about Ashley's future actions since he has chopped and changed his strategy since buying the club. While I was the first to argue he had allowed the club to spend what it had for the previous 2 seasons and defended him for it, the last transfer window has called that into doubt somewhat with only 3 loan deals made while we supposedly had £30m+ to spend. Furthermore, the desire to sell the club could mean money already in the bank and coming in from this season's TV revenue could be used to offset any sale fee/pay back debts to the owner. One thing is clear, though. Rafa is expecting every last penny to spend in the summer, and if he doesn't get it and Ashley is still the owner I think he'll be on his bike. I think we are talking £70m + player sales tbh.
