Martin Keown gives bizarre reasons for why he thinks Newcastle should walk away from Guehi transfer
As things stand Crystal Palace are mulling over whether or not to accept Newcastle United’s latest bid for defender Marc Guehi.
The two clubs have been back and forth playing mind games over for a while now and Newcastle fans, and probably Palace fans too, are getting a bit bored of the whole thing and are looking for a resolution one way or the other and at time of writing, we are waiting on a response after a fourth bid was submitted.
For us, as we’ve said before, it has gone on too long to just give up now so hopefully the deal gets done.
However, former Arsenal man and current TalkSPORT pundit Martin Keown has a different view.
Martin Keown rarely has a good point to make
Speaking to Simon Jordan and Jim White on TalkSPORT today, Keown suggested Newcastle should walk away from the deal.
“I do think he’s a very good player. I think there are limits. And I’m just wondering, this bravado – you know, there’s going to have to be a limit to what they can pay.
“I think they should step away at this point.”
Former Palace owner Simon Jordan took exception to this and asked why he took exception to this one out of all the inflated transfers recently.
Martin Keown made a list of points as to why, but none made sense
“Well, because I’m not particularly certain that that’s the right area for Newcastle to strengthen in.
“I think they’ve got an abundance of defenders there. I mean, they took Lloyd Kelly in there from Bournemouth, who might just be a little diamond that they could unearth.
“I wonder if that’s why Eddie was bringing him in. Maybe he’s seen now he’s not quite in pre-season what he thought. So he wants Guehi to come in instead. And it’s an ageing defence, maybe. And he wants to make some changes.
“But I would have thought, you know, there was talk of Isak having to leave the football club to fulfil the Financial Fair Play details.
“And now they’re paying £65 million for a defender. So that feels really odd.”
Prepare for a point by point rebuttal
Right then, it’s time to unpack this mess.
Newcastle went into this window looking to strengthen their defence with two first-team centre-backs out for a large portion of the season. They started the window by looking to bring in Lloyd Kelly, which they did, and Tosin Adarabioyo, which they did not. So the plan was always two centre-backs.
Lloyd Kelly may just turn out to be a diamond, but he plays on the wrong side of the centre of defence to replace Fabian Schar, so we still need a backup and eventual replacement for him.
Eddie Howe knew exactly what he was getting with Lloyd Kelly, they’ve worked together before; the Marc Guehi approach has nothing to do with Lloyd Kelly.
The talk of Alexander Isak having to leave the club to appease FFP was all media-driven crap. Yes, there was a shortfall to make up, which we did by selling Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson, but selling Isak was never an option. Also, we’re in a new reporting year now, so there’s room to manoeuvre again.
Finally, there is something odd about paying £65 million for a defender, yes, but that’s what he’s going to cost us, so it is what it is.
