Newcastle Striker Target Suffers Possible Serious Knee Injury In Preseason | OneFootball

As recently as a week and a half ago, Newcastle were linked with interest in French U21 international striker Jean-Philippe Mateta.

He has been linked with Newcastle throughout the summer with reports that Newcastle had even bid for the player.

Well, the player has recently suffered a knee injury and will now be assessed by a specialist as to its severity.

The tweet above roughly translates to:

Mateta is an excellent young prospect. He is only 22-years-old and reminds us a bit of Demba Ba. He signed for Mainz last summer for €10M from Lyon. He had an outstanding debut season in the Bundesliga scoring 14 goals in 34 league appearances.

He was actually tracked by Newcastle last summer before joining Mainz as Yoshinori Muto came the opposite way to Newcastle.

Before completing his move to Mainz, the striker reportedly was keen on Newcastle. Team Talk reported the following last summer:

We certainly hope that the injury is not too serious as he is an exciting young talent. It seems that Newcastle have moved on from Mateta as a target recently. It may have been because his fee is reportedly in the £35m range.