The forgotten NUFC duo costing a shocking £340,000 per month & £28m since signing
Newcastle United could have a trick up their sleeve when it comes to freeing up funds for new players.
Most fans have accepted the fact that we will be looking to shop in the bargain basement once again this summer.
The COVID-19 crisis has plunged most clubs into a state of financial confusion, with loan moves and free transfers expected to be rampant throughout the football world during this off-season.
A measly £30m has been reported as being the budget set by Ashley this time around, and as is always the case, you can bet that this figure is to include wages, agent fees, and all the other third party expenditure that goes into a deal.
When news last week that Jeff Hendrick was all but set to become a Newcastle player on a free transfer, one of my followers tweeted me highlighting that no one is ever 'free', with the midfielder's wage packet over the next few years something Mike Ashley will no doubt factor in.
With that in mind, Yoshinori Muto and Henri Saivet are two players on our books who - if sold - could bolster our spending power and free up a significant amount of space on our wage bill.
It may come as a surprise to fans, but Japanese flop Muto earns a whopping £50,000 a week (according to The Chronicle) to barely make the matchday squad - placing him as one of the clubs top earners. A £9.5m transfer fee and £5.2m in wages since his 2018 arrival means that we have paid almost £15m for his services up until now - and have just one top flight goal to show for it.
Saivet’s figures are even more shocking, with the Senegalese international costing us £1.6m an appearance since joining in the final days of Steve McClaren’s awful tenure back in January 2016.
With him earning £35,000-per-week, the maths tells us he's received £8.2m in wages over the past four and a half years. Factor in that fact he cost £5m to sign and that means we've paid out over £13m on a man that has only played five league games in a black-and-white shirt, making his transfer one of the worst in our club’s 128 year history.
Offloading both would free up almost £90,000 a week in wages and would give us a lot more room to play with in the market. It should be high up on our priority list and shouldn’t be allowed to go under the radar for another season.
Rob Elliot and Jack Colback were both released this summer and Bruce also revealed recently that Rolando Aarons and Achraf Lazaar are free to leave.
£28m in fees for a disastrous duo that have sadly done so little to contribute to our cause. Get rid, and use the resources to bring in what every Toon fan all knows we need.
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