Newcastle: Well Done For Missing Out On Diafra Sakho

7 goals, 7 games. He's definitely not worth £3.5m is he?

Newcastle confirmed this week in their Fans Forum that they would find it difficult to respond to every bit of false news about the club, so it wouldn't have been all that surprising if the reports in the summer linking Diafra Sakho to the club had been met with silence. After all, the suggestion was that only the most false information would be responded to, and with a ban. So, why did the club feel the need to apparently contact the Chronicle to denounce their link to Sakho as the worst back page they'd ever seen? Why engage with a paper that was already infamously banned and will continue to be indefinitely? Perhaps, it is as the Chronicle says, and the club did look into the player, but were put off by something. Perhaps they realised that if the fans got a sniff of them refusing to pay £3.5m on a striker who had the potential to hit the ground running in England, they'd look a bit silly? Well, unfortunately for Newcastle, Sakho has gone just that, scoring 7 goals in the 7 games he has started, including 6 in the Premier League, making both his valuation and the fact that Newcastle so openly (allegedly) denied ever being interested look like massive mistakes. If Sakho - a player based in France who scored 20 goals last year (albeit in the second division) - wasn't in the club's sights, then why the hell not? Looking at his integration with West Ham, he looks perfectly suited to the Premier League, and his partnership with Enner Valencia has contributed to 7 headed goals in the team, who certainly are not playing direct football. Newcastle, meanwhile, score as many headed goals as we win headers from set-pieces. Precious few. So even if Newcastle were not interested in the summer, you really have to question why the supposedly extensive, deeply knowledgable French scouting team didn't pick him up. Especially sine he's young, was cheap and looks like what they've been seeking for years. It's all incredibly frustrating.
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