Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez has confirmed that winger Yoan Gouffran had a number of offers to leave the Magpies this summer but none were right for the club.
The 30 year old was linked to a return to France with Lorient during the summer transfer window but he has managed to break back into the first team reckoning under Benitez, scoring a spectacular volley from a Jonjo Shelvey corner against Derby on Saturday, helping his side to a 2-0 victory. Benitez told the Evening Chronicle that he was close to leaving the club in the last two weeks of August:
“Yes, he had offers. He had offers before but it was not exactly the right offer. You never know for sure [if he was close to leaving this summer]. In football, people say this and that but you have to actually see the documents. In the end we are happy. We were talking between ourselves, the staff, and we were pleased to keep him. He has always been a good professional.”
Gouffran has made five starts, scoring one goal and providing two assists for Newcastle so far this campaign but his stay on Tyneside is unlikely to last beyond the end of the season. The 30 year old has one year left on his contract and Benitez said that due to his age and contract situation, he would have left this summer if a reasonable bid had come in:
“To be fair, during the last 15 days of pre-season we were waiting and maybe expecting to not receive a good offer, because if we received a good offer for him – not just for us, but for him – then with just one year left on his contract we’d have had to allow him to go.”
