Newcastle United came close to breaking their transfer record for a third successive window but failed when the player refused a move to the club.
According to reports from Sky Sports News reporter Keith Downie, the player that they were after was Boubakary Soumare, a central midfielder from French side Lille, as you can read below.
I’ve just had mystery man Soumaré confirmed by a high-level source at Lille. The total deal agreed was £45m including bonus add-ons. Understand Newcastle could revisit this in the summer #NUFC https://t.co/0EScc3mnPK
— Keith Downie (@SkySports_Keith) January 31, 2020
Remarkably, the deal was said to cost around £45m for the 20-year-old who has turned into a key player for Lille over the past season.
If this deal was to go through, that would mean that the club would’ve have smashed their transfer record for the third transfer window on the bounce after Miguel Almiron signed this time last year and Joelinton joined in the summer.
Steve Bruce revealed earlier in the day that the club had seen a mammoth bid accepted by another club, but that the player wanted to stay where he was – it now seems likely that Soumare is that player.
Would you like to have seen Soumare sign?
No, £45m is too much
Yes, looks a top prospect
He said (via The Chronicle): “We had a bid accepted that would nearly have been a transfer record.
“It was accepted by the club, but unfortunately the player wanted to stay where he was.
There’s no doubt that the young Frenchman would’ve been a huge coup, especially when you consider the other teams that were interested in him in this window. The Sun states (via L’Equipe) that Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Tottenham and Valencia were all interested in signing him, so perhaps the midfielders feels as if he waits just another half a season then he might get a move to a much bigger club than Newcastle.
Even if this deal hasn’t come off, the club must all in all be pretty satisfied with their dealings so far – though they could probably do with another striker.
Nabil Bentaleb, Valentino Lazaro and Danny Rose have all joined the club on Tyneside for the second half of the season, adding Champions League experience to a number of positions.
It now seems very unlikely that the club will get another player before the deadline shuts, with Sky reporting that a move for Olivier Giroud fell through due to a player rejecting their approach.