Keith Downie sheds more light on Johan Manzambi saga after Aston Villa hijack
Newcastle United now look set to miss out on another priority signing after feeling like they were close to getting things done.
Aston Villa now look set to sign Johan Manzambi from Freiburg despite so many reports suggesting that things were in place for Newcastle to take the 20-year-old Switzerland star off the Bundesliga side's hands in a £49 million move.
Newcastle had agreed the framework of a deal with Freiburg and had also verbally agreed a package with Manzambi, but it wasn't enough to get the deal over the line.
Similar to what happened with Victor Munoz and Liverpool, all the agreements were there, but when a club comes in that can offer more and looks to be in a better position, it becomes very hard for Newcastle to compete.
Newcastle never felt Manzambi was committed to the move
This is pretty much what happened, according to Sky Sports' Keith Downie, who said on X that Newcastle never really felt that Manzambi was committed to the move.
"As reported on Thursday, Newcastle were always aware & cautious of other PL interest (Villa & Man United) despite agreeing a framework of a deal with Freiburg for Johan Manzambi.
"The midfielder had verbally agreed personal terms with #NUFC, but that doesn’t stop him doing the same with Villa & opting for them.
"Very similar to the Victor Munoz situation."As reported by @David_Ornstein Villa are now in the process of finalising a deal for the 20-year-old — but there is also a fear they may not be able to finance a deal at £49m.
“Newcastle never felt he was quite committed due to the lure of Champions League football with #AVFC, and thought this may happen…"
Reality is harsh
It does seem a bit strange that Villa would go ahead and tie this deal up when they don't actually have the money to do it, but that's the game these days. Nothing makes sense anymore.
What does make sense, though, is that Aston Villa are the Europa League Champions, finished fourth in the Premier League last season and will compete in the Champions League in the upcoming season. Newcastle cannot compete with that right now, so if you take your black and white specs off, it's easy to see how we lost out.
We're back in that awful logic loop of needing Champions League to lure the best players, but we can't qualify for the Champions League because we don't have those players, but we can't attract those players until we get into the Champions League, but we can't..... and on and on.
We need to hope that, along the way during the summer, we find another Bruno Guimarães. A player who is top class but nobody really knows it yet, who can come in and wow everybody, and hopefully, like Bruno, fall in love with the place and stick around for a while, even when things go bad.
I realise that saying that now, when it's believed that he's trying to secure a move away, but this isn't the first time since he arrived that we failed to qualify for Europe, and at 28, he's only got one more shot at the big move to a club that's competing at the top.
