Benfica star Darwin Nunez scored another hat-trick at the weekend, now becoming the Portuguese League’s top scorer, and the local media are back on talking about his future.
Newspaper Jornal de Notícias today features one more story claiming the striker is ‘non-negotiable’, at least in the January window.
And it turns out that despite claiming there’s the ‘chase from some European clubs’, only one of the pretenders are actually named in the story, and that’s Newcastle United.
The outlet writes that the Magpies were one of the clubs who approached the Eagles in October, but their attempt was received with a denial from Benfica president Rui Costa.
Despite Benfica’s efforts to hold Nunez during the January window, they should listen to the offers they get in the summer, having already set an amount of €50m as a ‘reference price’.
Nunez has 14 goals for the Eagles this season. Following his brace against Barcelona, several clubs, especially from the Premier League, started getting linked to him, and that should only raise the expected auction for the summer.
That’s probably the reason why Newcastle couldn’t get him now.
To trigger his release clause in January, Benfica must be paid €150m, which will be too much for anyone, even the newly-rich Magpies.
