There are some clubs across world football that even Newcastle United would struggle to tempt players away from.
Indeed, for all of the progress Newcastle have made under PIF, it’s not as if they are the only attractive destination around.
Conor Gallagher is thought to be a target but is reportedly keen to stay at Chelsea and the same could well be said of Barcelona winger Raphinha.
The Brazilian only moved to the Camp Nou last summer but has been linked with a quick-fire return to the Premier League.
While it’s easy to see Newcastle would be interested in a player to have scored ten goals while registering 12 assists this season, Raphinha might have other ideas.
Raphinha keen to stay at Barcelona
The former Leeds star – hailed as “magic” during his time at Elland Road – has already hit out at “fake news” suggesting he could leave the club this summer.
Now, European football expert Andy Brassell has shared some further insight.
“You have got players who have been prepared to turn a blind eye to the mess that Barcelona has been off the field because they so badly want to play for Barcelona,” he told The Football Ramble’s On The Continent podcast (34 mins onwards).
“That’s the issue.
“Raphinha could have easily gone to Chelsea and made himself more money but he decided to go to Barcelona. With him particularly, he’s had a good season by the way, it was very pointed how he came out after the Supercopa De Espana in Saudi Arabia. This was just off the back of rumours of them selling him in January, he said ‘Well I hope this is the first of many trophies for Barcelona, I’m going to stay here and win lots of trophies.’
“Which is basically him publicly saying to the club ‘Well try and sell me because I’m not going anywhere’. And if a player doesn’t want to go, as we saw with Frenkie De Jong – and they tried a few different things to get him to go – those players won’t go.”
Newcastle should look elsewhere
It looks increasingly obvious that Raphinha does not want to leave Barcelona.
As a result, quite why Newcastle would continue to track him is unclear.
In an ideal world, Eddie Howe would start to get his signings together as quickly as possible to prepare for life in Europe.
How likely that is might be up for debate of course given the protracted nature of transfer dealings but wasting time trying to convince a player who does not want to leave hardly seem conducive to trying to achieve that.
At this rate, it looks much better just to move on.
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