Newcastle United may have yet to officially swap owners, but that hasn’t stopped some of the early transfer rumours to start regarding who they could bring in with a bit more backing.
Dries Mertens, who is on a free, has been one of the first big names to be linked, with it starting in France, as Manu Lonjon, a journalist for Eurosport, reported on Wednesday.
It appears there might be some truth behind it, as Corriere dello Sport are also claiming in their Thursday edition that Newcastle have joined the race for the Belgian.
It’s stated Napoli are still ‘awaiting his decision on the contract renewal’, but Mertens has yet to make a decision.
If he doesn’t, a number of clubs are after him, namely Inter, Chelsea, Monaco and ‘new-entry’ Newcastle, all ‘remaining in ambush’, just in case the forward, who is now the club’s all time top scorer (joint with Marek Hamšik), decides to try one last league before thinking about retiring.
For the Magpies, it would certainly be a statement of intent on the transfer market if they could land the 32-year-old, even if just for a couple of seasons, much like Manchester City did back in the day when they convinced Robinho to give the Premier League a go.
We’ll have to wait and see, but before any of this happens, Newcastle have to get the ownership change over the line.
