Saudi club now want ‘unplayable’ Newcastle man, Howe wants him to stay – journalist

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Yesterday after the pre-season friendly with Gateshead, Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe spoke about how Allan Saint-Maximin has a future at the club.

A few hours after his press conference Allan Saint-Maximin was linked with a move to the Saudi Pro League with rumours swirling around Twitter that the Newcastle forward was being eyed for a move to the burgeoning project.

For the most part the sources looked spurious but then Ben Jacobs posted a tweet that got people wondering.

Ben Jacobs ‘confirmed’ Al-Ahli have an interest in Saint-Maximin

Jacobs has been pretty reliable in the past and is deemed as a credible source so when he tweeted: “Can also confirm Al-Ahli are exploring Allan Saint-Maximin, although Eddie Howe has said he’s got a future at the club. Any potential move is at an earlier stage” people listened.

One key thing to note is that Jacobs didn’t offer up a potential fee for the deal. Newcastle and Al-Ahli would have to tread carefully on this part of the deal.

I think even the most die-hard Saint-Maximin fan would agree that a figure like £60million would be excessive, and given that Al-Ahli is one of the PIF-owned Saudi clubs the level of interest in that deal would be insane. The whole deal would be put under the microscope as we will be deemed to be cheating the system.

It doesn’t matter about the inflated prices and overblown contracts they’ve been paying in Saudi recently, as soon as Newcastle are involved the narrative will switch so if we are going to sell to a PIF-backed club we have to be sensible about it.

Newcastle maybe could do a deal at £40million without drawing attention

However, it’s all just hypothetical right now with Eddie Howe stating that ‘unplayable‘ Saint-Maximin is part of his plans less than 24 hours ago. Of course it’s his job to deflect such rumours so he may know more than he’s letting on, but time will tell.

If there is a genuine interest from Ah-Ahli then I would maybe expect the deal to be done at something like £40million. I feel that’s above his actual market value but not too much that it draws unnecessary attention.

I mean, I realise I’m just adding to the noise, but I will admit I know nothing beyond what I’ve seen online, I’m just here to try and make sense of it all.