Newcastle’s hopes of signing talented winger, Moussa Diaby took another hit when Bayer Leverkusen’s Director of Sport, Simon Rolfes, said in an interview with The Express, that they plan on keeping Diaby at the club “for as long as possible”.
Leverkusen finished third in the Bundesliga last season, thanks in no small part to Moussa Diaby who helped himself to 17 goals and 14 assists from 42 appearances. Rolfes said the club aims to improve on last season’s impressive accomplishments and to do so, they need to keep hold of their best assets.
Newcastle was also linked with Patrik Schick from Leverkusen in January but a move never came to fruition. Schick is also on Rolfes’ “Do not touch” list. When asked whether Bayer had received any formal proposals for Diaby, Rolfes told said: “No, no. For sure we want to keep Moussa for as long as possible.
“I know a lot of scouts have been sitting on our tribune during our matches because we have a lot of interesting, exciting young players with high potential.
Simon Rolfes: Leverkusen’s Director of Sport
“So, it’s the same with Patrik Schick. We do not have any offers for him but we are not even looking for that at the moment. We would like to keep him and play with him next year in the Champions League.”
Of course, we’ve heard this kind of talk before, and moves still happened, sometimes a hands-off warning is just a way of increasing the asking price before a bid is even made, however with the 22-year-old French wunderkind already rated at £60m it could take considerably more to force some kind of movement on this one.