Newcastle United have yet to make any bid for Mainz centre forward Jean-Philippe Mateta, according to freelance journalist Neil Farrington.
Farrington made the claim on his personal Twitter account on Monday night, stating that the Magpies have not actually made an approach for the £30million-rated star.
French publication L’Equipe reported earlier this month that Rafael Benitez’s side had made an offer for the 21-year-old, who moved to the Bundesliga from Lyon last summer.
The Frenchman scored 14 goals in 36 games in all competitions in his debut season in Germany.
I'm told neither #nufc nor any other Premier League club have bid for £30m-rated Jean-Philippe Mateta so far this summer (they could have had him for £8m last summer).
— Neil Farrington (@Neilfarrington) June 10, 2019
OPINION
This Mateta situation is becoming a bit of a saga for Newcastle. The club were linked with him last summer and, as Farrington says, could have got him for a far smaller fee that is being bandied about now. However, they clearly decided against it and he went to Mainz, where has has flourished. Now we’re talking about a huge sum of money to bring him to St James’ Park. The noises are that Newcastle are willing to spend more money on individual players than they have been in the past, having broken their long-standing club transfer record in January. Mateta would smash that figure once again. However, no bid has seemingly actually been made for the youngster. That makes sense considering the situation at Newcastle at the moment. No one knows who the manager or even the owner is going to be moving forward, so how can they try and bring players in for club record fees?
