OPINION
Newcastle United are playing a risky game in their pursuit of West Bromwich Albion forward Salomon Rondon and it could end with them missing out on signing the attacker if they’re not careful.
TEAMtalk previously reported that the Magpies had offered to pay £4million to take the Baggies forward on loan with them willing to pay a further £15million next summer in order to sign Rondon permanently.
The Express & Star have since reported that the Championship side have swiftly rejected the Magpies’s offer to take Rondon on loan and that the club have been left annoyed over the proposal Rafa Benitez’s side submitted.
The regional newspaper go onto state that the Baggies have no intention of letting their senior players go cheaply and with their 29-year-old forward’s contract expiring next summer, they see no benefit from agreeing to a loan deal.
It is believed according to this report that the Magpies made the cheeky loan bid instead of triggering Rondon’s £16.5million release clause as the club need to sell players before they can buy.
While it may be true that the Magpies don’t have the cash to buy Rondon out right until they clear their books by potentially trying to loan the forward, WBA will feel like the Premier League side are wasting their time.
After suffering relegation last season the only reason the Baggies are no doubt looking to sell their forward is due to them dropping down a division and it’s understandable that they would take offence at clubs trying to raid them on the cheap.
Especially when you consider that Rondon’s price tag is clearly known and £16.5million isn’t an outrageous amount to pay for a Premier League proven attacker given the inflated prices currently being quoted on the transfer market.
If Rondon was suddenly to gain new admirers for his services then given that the Baggies have been disrespected to some degree by the Magpies, then the Championship side could look to sell him to someone else instead.
While the Baggies will be powerless to stop their forward joining the Magpies if they triggered his release clause, they can still be a thorn during negotiations by being slow to submit their paper work and pulling off other annoying tricks.
Therefore the Magpies are clearly playing a risky game by simply not triggering Rondon’s release clause to get a deal done following their loan offer as the rightly annoyed Baggies could now make themselves hard to deal with.
