Aleksandar Mitrovic and Florian Thauvin have flourished since leaving Newcastle United.
Newcastle United fans and the club’s owner Mike Ashley might wince at the sight of the latest report from CIES, Football Observatory.
That is because two of their former players are worth an absolute fortune these days.
Aleksandar Mitrovic, who left Newcastle for £22 million last summer [Sky Sports], is now worth a whopping £42 million – according to CIES – after scoring 10 times for relegated Fulham this season.
The Serbian hitman managed only 14 goals in 65 Premier League and Championship appearances for the Magpies, who still made an £8 million profit but he was never the goalscorer that he was supposed to be when Steve McClaren signed him in 2015.
Another player who drastically under-achieved at St James’s Park is Florian Thauvin, who was loaned back to Marseille six months after joining the Tyneside club for £15 million – and he never returned.
The French playmaker, who was sold for £9 million [Transfermarkt], has established himself as one of Ligue 1’s best players since moving back to France and, going by CIES numbers, he is now worth £52 million.
Overall, the former Newcastle duds are now valued at a combined £94 million – figures that might hurt Ashley, whose club only made £31 million off the two of them.
In the context, that isn’t a bad return because neither player was important for United, but it does make you wonder what could have been possible had they clicked in the North East.
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