Four transfer windows have come and gone and Kara Mbodji is still at Anderlecht – though Newcastle could chance that with a £10m January bid.
Anderlecht defender Kara Mbodji has been forced to wait patiently for his big break in the Premier League. Barely a transfer window has gone by in recent years without the 49-cap Senegal international being linked to at least one English club – and the trend is set to continue in January.
Turkish Football report that Mbodji’s representatives have held talks with a number of Premier League sides. It is understood that Newcastle United, Leicester City, Swansea, Brighton and Crystal Palace are among the teams who want to bring the 28-year-old to England.
Links with Newcastle are particularly intriguing. Owner Mike Ashley is hoping to sell the club before January and Mbodji, who may be allowed to leave for £10 million, could be one of the first arrivals the ring in Newcastle’s new era.
And Mbodji, who helped Anderlecht win the Jupiler League title while reaching the quarter-finals fo the Europa League last season, would surely jump at the chance of working under Rafa Benitez on Tyneside.
At last?
“In January I narrowly missed out on my dream of playing in England – for the third consecutive transfer window,” Mbodji said in April, as reported by The Sun. After links with Sunderland, West Ham and West Brom came to nothing in the summer, the defender can now claim that four windows have come and gone without a move materialising.
“I have dreamed about playing in England since I was little. But I am a believer and things happen if they are meant to be.
“I have long felt ready to make the step up. I don’t need the fact that I had two good games against Zlatan Ibrahimovic (against Man United in the Europa League) to be certain – I know what I can do.”
Mbodji is a powerful and aggressive centre-back renowned for his strength in the air. And he would only enhance a Newcastle backline who have conceded less than a goal a game on average in 2017/18.
Is Mbodji’s childhood dream about to come true at last?
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