Newcastle have missed out on a host of strikers - but they one player they finally sign could be the best buy of them all.
There are just a few days until the new season starts, and Newcastle United face the prospect of heading into their opening game against Aston Villa without a recognised striker following a chaotic and psychologically draining summer.
Alexander Isak is working to force a move to Liverpool and is refusing to train, and as it stands seems rather unlikely to be in the squad on Saturday. Meanwhile, attempts to sign another forward to provide competition or a replacement have been disastrous – Benjamin Šeško, Hugo Ekitike and Liam Delap have all been targets that chose other sides.
Still, Newcastle have to put all that behind them, embarrassing though it has been, and sign a striker – and their long and winding search for a forward has brought them back to Brentford’s Yoane Wissa. Fortunately for Newcastle, Wissa might just be the best of the lot, at least in the short term.
Why Brentford’s Yoane Wissa could be Newcastle United’s perfect striker signing
Perhaps it’s because he has been playing his football for a relatively unfashionable club or simply because he is a late bloomer but Wissa, who turns 29 at the beginning of September, remains rather underappreciated despite hitting double figures in the Premier League for two years in a row.
A triumph of Brentford’s scouting and development, Wissa hit 19 league goals last season. That’s more than Šeško, more than Ekitike, and more than Delap – and if you take penalties out of the equation, he scored exactly as many Isak.
While Newcastle got themselves tangled up in big-money battles for more expensive players, they may end up signing the most efficient goalscorer of them all. Wissa scored from open play at a rate of 0.59 goals per 90 minutes last season – fractionally slower than Isak, but faster than all of the other forwards that Newcastle tried and failed to sign.
It’s true that there are other qualities that some of those players possess and Wissa doesn’t – Šeško has rare physical traits, for instance, while Isak has a dynamism on the ball that Wissa perhaps can’t claim to have. Still, he has scored as much or more as any of them, created scoring chances at a similar rate, and done so while playing for a team that perhaps have a little less firepower.
The other players involved in the equation are younger, of course, which affects their value, and a player like Šeško could easily go on to hit heights that Wissa can’t reach, but he is a proven goalscorer whose quality in front of goal and ability to find space and finish chances is the equal of almost any of the Premier League’s best forwards.
And while he may only have a few more years at the top rather than a decade, as some of the other forwards Newcastle have looked at might do, he will also cost much less. Pound for pound, he could well be the best signing that Newcastle could make of all the options that they have looked at, especially when you add in his positional versatility – Wissa plays as a winger for the Congolese national team.
Wissa’s quality and production is the equal of any of the players that have wound up on Newcastle’s shortlist. Some of those other strikers have broader skill sets or greater physical qualities, but ultimately none of them score more goals.
Will Newcastle sign Wissa before playing Aston Villa?
The problem, of course, is that they haven’t signed Wissa yet either. There have even been stories suggesting that Saudi Arabian side Neom SC are interested – it would be a grim and perhaps rather amusing irony if Newcastle somehow missed out on another transfer because their own owners funded a bid from elsewhere.
But the odds are that Wissa, who has not softened his stance on leaving Brentford despite returning to training and seems unlikely to be selected for their opening game of the season against Nottingham Forest. The chances are that he will be a Newcastle player before long.
Fabrizio Romano is among the reporters suggesting that a deal is extremely likely to be struck, but there are hurdles to clear – not least that Brentford apparently won’t sell until they find a replacement.
NewcastleWorld report that a deal is being held up because of the need for Brentford to find someone to fill Wissa’s boots. Keith Andrews’ side supposedly want to sign Dango Ouattara from Bournemouth, but the Cherries also want to find a replacement before letting the winger leave. Newcastle are the last in a line of dominoes that need to fall but which have yet to be pushed.
It's been widely reported that a deal for Wissa, who has just one year remaining on his contract, will set Newcastle back around £35m, and they seem prepared to pay that having had earlier bids of £25m rejected.
While it remains likely that Wissa signs for Newcastle before long, it’s not currently looking likely that he’ll be ready to play on Saturday. This is a transfer saga that has a few twists and turns left in it yet. Perhaps this one will finally end well for Newcastle, however – and if he keeps scoring like he has done at Brentford, Newcastle fans may get over all those missed opportunities a little more quickly than they might have expected.
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