Former Celtic and Sunderland midfielder Ki Sung-yueng has departed the club on deadline day, the club has announced.
The 31-year-old has left ‘by mutual consent’, having his contract terminated to prevent him from spending the last months of his contract rotting away with the reserves as he would not have made the final Premier League squad for the club.
After joining the club from Swansea City in July 2018, the former South Korean international was only able to make 23 appearances in all competitions for the Magpies, with only four coming during this season.
The club went onto thank Ki for his service as well as wished him well in the future. Similarly, the player thanked the fans for the opportunity of playing for such a ‘great club’. You can read the full statement here from NUFC.co.uk.
Did NUFC need to chase a midfielder?
Yes
No
Reports yesterday suggested that even with the long-term injuries to Jetro Willems and Paul Dummett, the player was very unlikely to be making the matchday squad due to the signings of Danny Rose, Valentino Lazaro and Nabil Bentaleb.
On the whole, this is probably the conclusion which suited all parties the most. It was claimed by the Daily Star that they were finding it difficult to offload the player due to his alleged £60,000 per week contract, however, now it seems they have come to an agreement on cutting that short so that the player can find a new club in the upcoming weeks.
Having only played 173 minutes of football so far this season, he was well down in the pecking order for the club, and with the arrival of Nabil Bentaleb, it seemed pretty clear that he wasn’t going to play much. The Toon already have Jonjo Shevley, Isaac Hayden, Sean and Matty Longstaff ahead of him, so with only two playing in the central midfield positions under Bruce’s 5-4-1, then he was never likely to play much.