Newcastle United’s board have been left furious with the drawn-out transfer saga over the French striker Hugo Ekitike this summer.
This is according to Fabrizio Romano who was speaking about the transfer plans on Tyneside on the latest episode of his Here We Go podcast.
Earlier this month, Romano claimed the two sides had agreed a deal in the region of €30m (£25.9m) for the 20-year-old leaving just personal terms to be agreed on.
However, it is now believed a deal for the young striker is all but over with the Toon unable to finalise the proposed move after finding an agreement with Reims.
Having netted 10 goals in the French top flight last season in his 23 appearances, it appears Ekitike will now not be moving to Tyneside and frustrations are certainly high at St. James’ Park over the matter:
“Hugo Ekitike deal with Newcastle at the moment is off. Newcastle are really not happy with the situation on agent’s side and on player’s side because they had an agreement with Reims but not with the agents.
“And so at the moment nothing happened. Let’s see what happens later in the window.”
TIF Thoughts on Romano’s comments…
This has certainly been an extremely odd transfer saga with a number of big-named players already looking to join the project on Tyneside.
Do you think Ekitike could still sign this summer?
Yes
No
Yet this young striker – who could have challenged Callum Wilson for the starting spot – is seemingly reluctant to take on the challenge of playing in the Premier League infront of one of the country’s biggest fanbases.
Perhaps the speculation of interest from Paris Saint-Germain has turned his head, however, we do feel this may be a bigger loss on his part than on Eddie Howe’s side.
But with this deal seemingly over, we do think the Toon need to turn their attentions on to other striker targets with Wilson having another campaign marred by injury issues.