Newcastle United have reportedly ended their pursuit of Jesse Lingard.
The midfielder’s contract expires this summer, and it was heavily rumoured that he could head to St James’ Park on a free. The Northern Echo recently claimed that Eddie Howe is a big fan of Lingard and wanted to add him to his squad.
However, that won’t be happening according to the Telegraph. And that’s because of the 29-year-old’s wage demands.
They report that Lingard wants to earn in excess of £150,000-a-week, as well as receiving a sizeable signing-on fee.
That’s an obscene weekly figure, and equates to almost £8million-a-year. If Newcastle agreed, he’d be earning more than Allan Saint-Maximin and Joelinton combined.
Wage demands mean Jesse Lingard is wrong for Newcastle
The club are absolutely right to walk away from this deal.
Lingard is in a privileged position given his contract status. He’s going to become a free agent this summer, meaning teams can sign him for nothing. But that comes at a cost, with the player requesting bigger wages and more money for joining. Effectively, they want the money that would have gone to the player’s previous club.
Someone out there might be willing to pay Lingard £150,000-a-week, but thankfully it’s not us. That would make him the highest paid player at St James’ Park ahead of Bruno Guimaraes. He reportedly gets paid £120,000-a-week.
Is Lingard better than Bruno? Not for me.
Wages are only going to increase at Newcastle given the calibre of players being targeted, but we cannot simply smash our wage structure. It creates an unnecessary precedent.
As soon as one player earns mega money, everyone else will want the same. Paying Lingard that kind of money could create serious problems for Newcastle when signing other players.
He could have been great in black and white, but Lingard has priced himself out of a move to St James’ Park. How ironic after Manchester United did the same to him in January.
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