England defender Marc Guehi will be starting the new Premier League season in a Crystal Palace shirt.
Guehi has been the subject of four bids from Newcastle United and the fourth, as HITC revealed, was a club record for the North East club worth around £65million.
Palace had been insisting that Newcastle would need to break their club record, currently around £63million, to land him.
Crystal Palace want more to let Marc Guehi leave
Newcastle had believed their latest offer would be enough to land Guehi, who is understood to be ready to move to the North East.
However, sources have now confirmed to HITC that the offer is still not deemed enough in Palace’s eyes and that has been relayed to Newcastle sporting director Paul Mitchell – who has been leading negotiations who is told a bid of closer to £70million may be needed.
It is believed that Mitchell is consulting with Newcastle’s recruitment team including manager Eddie Howe about what they should do next and they are considering whether to move on and pursue other options.
Newcastle have been assessing other defenders all summer including AC Milan’s Malick Thiaw, whilst it is understood Chelsea’s Trevoh Chalobah and Wolfsburg’s Maxence Lacroix – both of whom were on Palace’s list to replace Guehi – are also on their radar.
Eddie Howe says Newcastle are ready to walkaway from Guehi deal
It remains to be seen if Newcastle do move on but Howe did suggest on Friday that they were ready to walkaway from the deal.
“There are times where we have to go, ‘OK, that’s too much’, and we’ve done that plenty of times in the last two-and-a-half years,” Howe said at his press conference ahead of their season opener with Southampton.
“People might not have found out about that, but we’ve had to switch targets. It depends on the deal and the amount of money that you’re going to spend.”
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