4. Newcastle Secretly Want Ba To Leave To Fund Luuk De Jong
Although Alan Pardew does have a transfer budget available, he does need to make some extra funds to justify the purchases he wants to make to help Newcastle compete in their European return next year. One striker United are pursuing aggressively is Luuk De Jong, the FC Twente striker who has been a goal scoring sensation in the Dutch league. The 21-year-old scored 25 goals in 32 games last season and is another product of Graham Carr's astute scouting eye for finding Europe's top talents. De Jong, who has been hyped as "the next Robin Van Persie" could be a striker who to play for Newcastle for the next 10 years and be a top forward at the club. Ba's release clause would fund this move and if De Jong were a hit, would have a huge re-sale value that would be bigger than Ba's.
Matt Holmes
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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.
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