West Bromwich Albion are interested in signing Newcastle United midfielder Isaac Hayden, according to the Telegraph’s John Percy.
The journalist revealed the news on his personal Twitter account, claiming that the Baggies are one of several teams targeting the 23-year-old, who has started the club’s last four games across all competitions in the absence of Sung-Yong Ki or Jonjo Shelvey.
West Brom want to sign Newcastle midfielder Isaac Hayden. Little encouragement from #nufc so far, & other clubs are in. #wba also expect to hear whether Harvey Barnes will be recalled by #lcfc this week
— John Percy (@JPercyTelegraph) January 8, 2019
However, Darren Moore’s side are said to have received little encouragement thus far in their pursuit of the player.
The former Arsenal man told the Chronicle recently that he still wants to leave the Magpies in order to move closer to his family down south, having handed in a transfer request last summer.
OPINION
This is a move that makes sense for West Brom. They have a number of ageing central midfielders and could use someone with experience of winning promotion like Hayden. For Newcastle, though, the timing simply isn’t right. Hayden normally isn’t high in the pecking order for manager Rafael Benitez, but with Ki Sung-yueng away on international duty with South Korea and Jonjo Shelvey continuing to struggle with injuries he has suddenly become a weekly starter for the club. Obviously his stance remains that he wants to leave the club so Hayden himself would probably be open to a move to the Hawthorns. However, as Percy says the Baggies have received little encouragement from Newcastle and that’s no surprise really. Benitez knows that he won’t be given loads of resources to go and spend on players this month so he’s probably reluctant to sell anyone either. This one has the feel of a move that will be revisited in the summer, but not one that will go through now.
