Jamie Carragher fears Newcastle United will be paying over the odds for Marc Guehi if the club agree to match Crystal Palace reported £70m asking price.
The Sky Sports pundit feels the Eagles captain is a “good player”, but “wouldn’t pay £70m” and wonders if there’s better value elsewhere as we search for a right-footed centre-back.
This is a feeling shared by a few Newcastle fans, with most rating the 24-year-old yet questioning if he’s worth a club-record fee; which could take up all of our remaining budget and stop us from also signing a much-needed right-winger.
Speaking over the weekend, Carragher said: “Botman’s a big miss for them, he’s out for a while. It’s interesting what’s going to happen with Guehi at Crystal Palace, I mean Guehi… they’re talking about £60m, £70m, he’s a good player [but] I wouldn’t pay £70m for him though.
“That’s a big decision for the club whether they look somewhere else for someone cheaper because that is top dollar.”
At this stage, we might just accept an overpay if £70m got the deal done and finally ended this tedious transfer saga, but if that meant no right-winger it may feel like a mistake, especially when we’ve previously paid half that fee to bring Sven Botman and Bruno Guimaraes to the club.
It’s all hypothetical without us knowing the true ins and outs, but if AC Milan’s Malick Thiaw was half the price of Guehi and that freed up funds to also bring in a quality right-winger, I’d probably side with that over £70m on a centre-back approaching the final 18 months of his contract.
