Newcastle United have added Brighton’s Leandro Trossard to this summer’s potential target list, as the Magpies look to sell fan-favorite Allan Saint-Maximin with any fees likely to be reinvested in their rebuilding.
Saint-Maximin is adored by Newcastle faithful for his unorthodox playing style, deception, social media banter, and Gucci headband but he is now set to be sold according to daily Mail.
The Frenchman has played 79 games for Tyneside since joining in 2019 and has scored 11 goals, five of which came this season.
Leandro Trossard is one of the players on the list of potential substitutes, along with Nottingham Forest’s Brennan Johnson and Bayer Leverkusen’s Moussa Diaby, the two wingers the club have already prepared, but Newcastle face fierce competition for both.
Signing Trossard does not make sense when compared to the Frenchman, because Saint-Maximin is two years younger than him and has the same number of goals as the Belgian this season. Although the Brighton winger is naturally talented, the signing does not appear to propel the club forward much.
The other two, Johnson and Diaby, are young stars and one of them would make more sense because of their youth and potential for growth.
According to the Daily Mail, the Belgium striker joined from Genk for around £15m in 2019 with only 16 months left on his contract. How Newcastle can make this sense, is if they sell Saint-Maximin for more than buy Trossard and then reinvest the rest in other positions. With only a year left on his contract, the Magpies can get the Belgian for a good price.
Even saying that, Newcastle fans are still expected to be sad about the move. Saint-Maximin was a source of entertainment for them when things were bad at the start of the season and he is still one of Eddie Howe’s best players.
