According to the Daily Mail, Newcastle United are fighting hard to sign left-back Mitchell Barker from Bayer Leverkusen. After quoting £14.5 million for the Netherlands U21 international, they have received a positive response from the pharmaceutical company.
Last summer, Bayer Leverkusen paid £8 million to bring in Barker from Paris Saint-Germain. Now that Newcastle's offer has made it possible for them to achieve considerable profits in a short period of time, the pharmaceutical companies are willing to start negotiations. Buck, represented by agent Predator Rayola, also tends to move to the Premier League. Newcastle are hoping to close the deal today (Thursday UK time), but even if they do, players won't have time to complete the registration process and play this weekend.
At the same time, Newcastle is also in constant contact with a number of other targets, such as Manchester United midfielder Jesse Jesse Lingard and Sevilla centre-back Diego Carlos – but to bring in brazilians, Newcastle also faces competition from Tottenham Hotspur and AC Milan. Newcastle's signings focused on centre-backs, quoting Monaco defender Benoit Badiahill, Burnley centre-back Tarkovsky and Freiburg centre-back Nico Schlotterbeck, although Schlotterbeck was considered more likely to join Bayern Munich.
While improving the defence was a top priority, Newcastle did not give up on thinking about the striker. Reims in Ligue 1 said they had rejected a £30m offer from Newcastle's U20 striker Hugo Equitic, who was optimistic about the team's potential. In an interview with French media outlet Le Quotidien du Sport, Reims chairman Jean-Pierre Kylo said: "It is true that many people are aware of the quality of this player now, but we have known it for a long time. He was cultivated by us, so we weren't surprised. ”
"Newcastle quoted the price, we discussed it and they gave a price that we didn't think was appropriate. Because we didn't really want him to leave, we set the price quite high. They did quote us €35 million (about £29.2 million), plus some floating fees, but some of the terms were almost impossible to achieve, like winning the Champions League. We want a base transfer fee of €30 million (about £25 million), plus a €10 million (£8.3 million) achievable floating clause. ”
(Felix Cat)
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