Newcastle to enter fresh round of talks for £34m defender as club stand firm on price

Newcastle United remain undeterred from bagging their number one target this summer despite talks not going to plan.

There's a lot of frustration at the moment surrounding Newcastle United's transfer business, or indeed lack thereof as the club's refusal to pay the asking price for anyone is hampering the ability to get things done.

We had been led to believe that a deal for Malick Thiaw was close two weeks ago, but now, with Thiaw heading to the USA for pre-season with AC Milan, it is clear that we've been led down the garden path.

However, The Northern Echo says that the club are confident that there is a deal to be done for Thiaw.

Newcastle's initial offer was actually pretty insulting

Penny-pinching Newcastle had previously offered €30 million (£25 million) to AC Milan for Thiaw, and the Northern Echo believes that included performance-related add-ons.

Given that Milan's valuation of Thiaw is €40 million (£34 million) it's hardly surprising that talks broke down.

The report says that Newcastle are refusing to go as high as Milan's valuation (what's new there?) but are confident that a deal will be done.

The mood is tense

As we said yesterday, there may well be a deal there and they might save themselves a couple of million quid in the end, but by then, Thiaw is going to be so far behind the rest of the team that it's going to take him ages to make an impact next season.

We know we're not football business experts and we don't have the same insights as those who work for the club, so all of our ranting and raving comes from an entitled fan's point of view, but at the end of the day, it's us mugs who they are here to serve as custodians of our club - as Amanda Staveley was always so keen to reiterate.

It's literally their job to give us something to be excited about and so far this summer, we're not seeing it. Sure, by the time the season gets underway, we'll probably look back at this time and wonder what we were all panicking about, but we're living it now, and it sucks. It's even making me negative and I made a promise to myself that I'm in danger of breaking here.