A report in the Turkish media has claimed that Jonjo Shelvey is the subject of an approach by Besiktas.
The reports come from Turkish outlet, Fotomac who claim that the Turkish giants are willing to pay between £2.2 and £3.1m for the midfielder who is currently sidelined with a thigh injury.
It is firmly believed that this could well be Shelvey’s last season at St James’ Park after such an injury-hit campaign has limited his first-team appearances this season. The season kicked off with a long lay off after he limped off in a pre-season friendly against Benfica. Shelvey then made his return before Christmas, ahead of schedule, only to pick up another long-term injury.
Shelvey is three appearances away from triggering an automatic contract extension, but it’s unlikely that he will get the chance to reach that milestone now with his fitness heavily in question. Strangely, Shelvey looked to be in the best shape of his career in pre-season, indicating that he’d worked extremely hard in the off-season, but fate had other plans.
Now Newcastle find themselves window shopping in the January window for potential replacements, especially after Bruno Guimaraes left St James’ Park on crutches with a support boot on yesterday.
However, the fact that we are now sitting here chewing on our fingernails awaiting news on Bruno’s ankle and don’t have a replacement lined up, it seems odd that Newcastle would entertain the idea of letting a midfielder leave. Whether the plan is to play Shelvey when he returns to fitness and trigger the contract extension or not, only Eddie Howe knows, but we’re not really in a position to weaken the squad at the moment.
Additionally, I don’t see a side paying money for a player who may potentially not be fit enough to play again this season when they could scoop them up on a free at the end of the campaign when his contract expires.
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