Mark Douglas has been on a recent episode of the Everything is Black and White Podcast, and he has been discussing transfers for Newcastle United this summer.
The Chronicle reporter spent a bit of time on what Newcastle might do in the transfer market and spent a lot of time on the failed takeover of the club.
However, when host Andrew Musgrove mentioned Ollie Watkins, who has been linked with a move to St. James’ Park, this is what The Chronicle reporter said:
“I think this is going to be a problem for Newcastle moving forward, that the prices [of players] don’t seem to have dropped significantly, but the amount of money that people have to spend does appear to have.
“The Ollie Watkins one is really interesting because it was suggested to me that a lot of work had been done on that deal, but that was before maybe they realised the full extent of Newcastle’s budget and the full extent of not having [the] takeover.”
So, it seems as if the Toon had planned to move for Brentford’s striker, but that might not happen now because of Newcastle’s new budget.
TIF Thoughts…
Do you think Newcastle could sign Watkins?
No, he is out of our price range
Yes, we could get him
Watkins was in sublime form for the Bees in the 2019/20 season as he scored 26 league goals (including play-offs) and earned an average match rating of 7.26 from his displays in the league.
The Bees want at least £25m for the striker and Newcastle only have a budget of £35m plus player sales, they might have had more, but the proposed takeover fell through.
So, any move for Watkins would take up a significant chunk, and he has never played in the Premier League before.
So, you can see why they might not be willing to take that risk on the 24-year-old, although many other PL clubs are sniffing around, so he might still end up playing in the Premier League in the 2020/21 season but maybe not for the Toon.