Newcastle United fans got excited recently when it was reported that the club had joined the race for Crystal Palace winger Michael Olise.
The 22-year-old had a fanastic season alongside Eberechi Eze at Crystal Palace last season and has now garnered a lot of interest from several top clubs.
It was believed that Olise's contract contained a £60million release clause and it was therefore a shock that Newcastle had thrown their hat into the ring for that amount given how much talk of FFP/PSR has dominated the talk going into the transfer window.
Further to that it was then speculated that the release clause only applied to clubs competing in the Champions League, which seemed odd considering it was Chelsea who were said to be front runners for Olise's signature and they won't be playing Champions League football next season.
However, now Telegraph journalist Matt Law has been speaking about the Michael Olise situation on the London is Blue podcast (via The Chronicle), and he believes that there may not be a clause at all and that Newcastle are among the club given permission to talk to Olise.
“If you speak to people at the Palace end you get told quite a lot about a supposed buy-out clause, maybe as much as £60m.
“And it has been mentioned that it might only be applicable to Champions League clubs. We speak to people at the Chelsea and they’re very definite that it’s not applicable to only Champions League clubs, and that there might not even be actual clause.
“So I’m very, very wary of clause talk, but there seems to be a deal that can be done for him. Like I say, those three clubs [Chelsea, Newcastle and Bayern Munich] have got permission to speak to him.”
It looks then, that Newcastle are in the mix for Michael Olise but with Chelsea and Bayern Munich also at the table, it's another case of Newcastle needing to have their sales pitch well and truly on point.
We doubt this will be a one that is resolved any time soon so it's one to keep an eye on over the next couple of weeks.
Things are definitely starting to heat up in terms of Newcastle's transfer business.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
13 | 18 | 34 |
2 |
Arsenal
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
4 |
Brighton
|
13 | 5 | 23 |
5 |
Manchester City
|
13 | 3 | 23 |
6 |
Nottingham Forest
|
13 | 3 | 22 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
13 | 14 | 20 |
8 |
Brentford
|
13 | 3 | 20 |
9 |
Manchester United
|
13 | 4 | 19 |
10 |
Fulham
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
11 |
Newcastle United
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
12 |
Aston Villa
|
13 | -3 | 19 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
13 | 1 | 18 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
13 | -7 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
13 | -11 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
13 | -11 | 10 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
13 | -7 | 9 |
18 |
Wolves
|
13 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Ipswich
|
13 | -11 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
13 | -15 | 5 |