According to reports in the North East media, Newcastle United had been in advanced talks with Saints about signing Mohammed Salisu, that is until Sport Republic took over and stopped the deal dead in it's tracks.

Of course the new owners will be keen to put out positive PR in the early days of their ownership, but this rumour about why Newcastle did not land Salisu in the January window has emanated in the North East Media rather than from that in the South, whom you would expect to be briefed on this sort of thing.

According to football media outlet 90min’s northern-based transfer correspondent Graeme Bailey, Newcastle had a deal agreed with Saints for £40 million to take the central defender to St James Park.

The report confirmed :

Salisu was a target picked out early by Newcastle’s new owners of their own, back in late 2021 and added that a deal had been progressing with talks summarised by a £40million transfer including add-ons and bonuses.

Bailey continued that Eddie Howe’s side were hopeful of completing the move early in January but Sport Republic wasted no time in cancelling it altogether.

Most Saints fans would recognise the nature of this deal, they can relate it to a number of promising Saints stars of the past, whether it was Ted Bates with Martin Chivers, Lawrie McMenemy with Mike Channon, Chris Nicholl with Danny Wallace, Virgil Van Dijk or a raft of players, the Saints way has been find them cheap and sell them at a Premium.

The deals I have mentioned all have one thing in common, they were good business for the club, the only time it fails is when the money is reinvested badly and that was the case after Van Dijk left.

So if Salisu had gone, then yes he would have been a loss on the playing side, but £40 million in the kitty would have done a lot more for the club and they will feel that perhaps they already have Salisu's replacement on the books in Dynel Simeu.

But Simeu isn't ready just yet and pre Sport Republic's arrival, Saints needed the money to pay the bills, now they seemingly don't.

So Saints fans will be glad to hear that as was promised, Sport Republic are not going to change the strategy, but they are going to change the way we implement that strategy, we will no longer be backed into a corner with a transfer, we can afford to hold tight to the money is right for us and we get the optimum fee for the player.

£40 million might be good for Salisu now, as £75 million for Van Dijk was 4 years ago, but another year and he could be worth twice that, now we can do things not only quicker as was alluded too, but at our own pace.

Just how much of 90 mins claim is actually true is open for debate, after all Newcastle have signed a fair few players in the transfer window, but the feeling is that none of them are long term, most possibly will never play for the club again if they keep them up, Newcastle will sign a better calibre of player.

But for now they have had to sign journeymen, perhaps they are briefing their own media that they are looking to the future and chasing players who can take the club forward long term, certainly this has come from the North East.

But whatever the situation, we will perhaps never know how close the two clubs where to a deal, but we do know Salisu is still our player, we have shown we will hold our players now, we aren't going to spent £40 million ourselves, at least just not yet, but the club's abilities to hold on to its own players has changed and for the good.

Photo: Action Images

saint901 added 11:21 - Feb 3 Whilst I would like to believe that the new owners herald a new ambition and strategy for the club, signalled by an unwillingness to cash in on Salisu, I wonder if it's a bit early to draw that conclusion? Earlier articles about the supposed algorithm that determines player value to the club and the optimum time to cash in, don't sit well with a conclusion that we have stopped being a selling club? Instead I think that the new owners wanted some time to understand the club and the metrics brought to the table by our recent recruit from Brentford and how that might be able to provide a war chest to buy some decent talent in the future. A club in our position needs a couple of key things to stay in the league and one of them is to let in as few goals as possible. Whilst I confess to being a little concerned by Salisu's tendency to have a mad 5 mins, in the last match v City, he didn't and was MoTM. I'm hoping he's turned a corner and we can rely more upon him to keep the back line difficult to score against. I think (hope) therefore the decision not to sell was influenced in part by ensuring a decent finish this season. Being more cynical, if Newcastle survive this season then he will be worth more than £40m to them next term.

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dirk_doone added 11:43 - Feb 3 I remember when Gao forced Kat to delay the sale of van Dijk until after he took over when she and Les had planned to sell him to Liverpool in the summer. I wonder if she'll still be pushing for Salisu to still be sold in the next window?
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Waylander added 12:10 - Feb 3 sounds like b#ll#cks to me
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SaintNick added 12:25 - Feb 3 Dirk Im not sure how you know that Gao blocked Kat from selling Van Dijk, certainly neither party have confirmed that, Saints reported Liverpool for an illegal approach for Van Dijk as early as 6th June that summer, if you are inferring that Gao was trying to take the profit himself, firstly he took over Saints with two weeks of the transfer window remaining so could have sold him in August and when he was eventually sold all of the money went back into the transfer kitty , so im not sure what the point is here

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Big_T added 13:04 - Feb 3 This started on a toon forum, It then got copied to North East media outlet, It then became a verified story ! Sports Republic entered talks with saints way before 4th Jan 2022 ! ( end of September'21) When exclusive talks are entered you can't asset strip ( in this case sell players , all major deals are suspended) At this time when sports Republic are in talks with saints, Newcastle's takeover hadn't completed Oct 2021 , they then appoint a manager 8th November '21 But before any of this happened they had already agreed a £40m transfer of a player I smell B.S.

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DellBoyWally added 13:40 - Feb 3 This story reeks of media-degook! NU are, mostly, bringing in "make do" players and, certainly, manager. Howe is a failed PL manager - shoved out of Burnley after a disastrous spell and got Bournemouth relegated. They may have asked about Salisu but I'm sure got a not-so-polite response from Saints, even before the takeover. Me thinks this is NU club/media-speak to satisfy the fans who have seen average and below incomings when the fans expected more. Most of then I'd not want at Saints! Come the summer, if NU survive, money will be flooding out and more genuine top players will be arriving, probably at inflated prices! BUT!! Watch the political situation in Serbia. Our owners aren't liked by the President and ruling party who have already made moves to block their business activities. The political situation in the area is not particularly stable and I'd dread seeing another flare up in the region, not just in terms of our ownership but of seeing lovely people of all nations drawn into another conflict.

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JoeEgg added 14:46 - Feb 3 If the Newcastle Social Media sources are even ONLY half as bad as Hampshire Live, you can be fairly certain the Salisu story was always a non starter!
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PaleRider added 15:25 - Feb 3 DBW - only a relatively small part of United Group, in which Solak owns 33%, operates in Serbia. They have far bigger operations in Greece. Also, I believe he has changed nationality to Malta. Not to say his wealth could not be impacted by events in the Balkans but he is not as exposed as you make out. Also he does not own Saints - Sport Republic (a business in which he owns a stake) are the owners. As a result I don't think we are hugely at risk, although this can always change.

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SaintPaulVW added 16:42 - Feb 3 Sounds like a made up story to me. New owners probably spotted an easy win and added a bit about blocking a non existent transfer. I'm sure Salisu will be up for sale soon, end of next season is my guess, after we double down on the moneyball strategy. However, given how long he took to start playing, Salisu barely has a year's experience in the Premier League. I think they will want to accrue a bit more value in him yet. As you say Simeu is the obvious replacement and he is a few years off.

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Ninja9 added 16:53 - Feb 3 IMHO the story is absolute BOl***ks
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highfield49 added 17:22 - Feb 3 Whether there's any truth in this story or not I can't help thinking that Newcastle shot themselves in both feet by their contrived fixture cancellation. Why on earth would we want to strengthen their team for the rearranged match? I imagine that they now have sufficient virus and injury free players to cobble together a team.
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pintsizedsaint added 18:53 - Feb 3 Hmm…. Of course one can never be certain, but it was only a few weeks ago the Telegraph reported via their sources that Newcastle enquired and it was immediately rejected by SFC. This “new” report would imply that SFC were actually actively considering it. My gut instinct is that NUFC sources are trying to minimise any possible discontent that they didn’t actually didn’t do that well in the Jan window - certainly in the Central Defender stakes. This would make it sound like NUFC were doing their best, so “it wasn’t them”. Personally, I think them (and Everton) have panic buys - and it’s not crystal clear whether that’s going to save them from relegation.

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