While the hope from the new Saudi Arabian owners is that their money will allow Newcastle United to bully the transfer market at will, there is also the downside to everyone knowing you are rich: they know you have the cash.
This is something the Magpies found out the hard way during the January transfer window, with many clubs turning down bids from them in hope of an improved offer following, which sometimes happened but often didn’t.
On top of that, everyone knew Eddie Howe wanted another striker to play alongside Chris Wood, which is why a few teams had their walls built around their star goalscorers, with Atalanta among those.
Newcastle were interested in Duván Zapata, who certainly has the attributes to shine in the Premier League, but what they had to offer wasn’t to the Serie A side’s taste.
A bid was made, that much is known, but the reports vary on it, although many did suggest there was a clause in there linked to Newcastle staying up, which Atalanta weren’t ready to take a risk on.
Either way, one thing was clear, which is that, according to Corriere Bergamo, the Newcastle offer was ‘inadmissible’.
Some previous articles claimed a bid of €40m was on its way from Newcastle, but that clearly never materialised, and the Colombian is still at Atalanta to date, albeit injured.
The good news, however, is that Corriere Bergamo do suggest everyone can ‘talk about it again eventually in June’, meaning a potential door opening, which corroborates a previous claim by Calciomercato.
