Whatever happened to Marc Guehi? | OneFootball

This summer’s transfer window has been the most frustrating, certainly since the Newcastle United takeover.

Everyone nods their head in agreement at the difficulty of doing business in January, so when we came up blank in the previous window, it was never truly a surprise or disappointment.

Throw in PSR and it was clear we really didn’t have the money (PSR flex), or I believe inclination, to salvage what was left of our injury ravished season, by overpaying for mediocre players to boost our threadbare squad.

We were told that we should be happy that we hadn’t lost our superstars and that we would now have more money to spend in summer 2024. With that being a much better time to go shopping.

The summer 2024 transfer window didn’t get off to the best of starts and losing an extremely promising right sided attacking player when we knew we were looking for… well… a talented right sided attacking player, seemed like the stupidest of stupid moves.

Still, with that major short-term PSR issue dealt with and moving into a new financial year that allowed far more flexibility in terms of ability to bring in new players, it was time to go and upgrade our sick note striker, left footed right sided attacker and aging centre backs.

We thought we had our centre backs sorted with a couple of free agent out of contract players, Tosin Adarabioyo and Lloyd Kelly.

However, the lad from Fulham decided that staying in the smoke, not having to move house and only having to get a different bus to work, was the better option.

Maybe if we had still had King Kev we could have convinced him that Newcastle was closer to London than Chelsea and we all would have been happy.

The failure to land Tosin Adarabioyo led us down the dark lonely road to this summer’s biggest transfer saga.

Would Newcastle have even considered reportedly offering £70m for Marc Guehi, had we landed both free transfers?

I don’t know if we had ever considered other defensive options other than Adarabioyo and Kelly?

I don’t know that we had even scouted Marc Guehi last season, such was the media perceived certainty of landing Adarabioyo.

I believe that if he had joined, then our central defender slots would have been full and we would have split our, not too inconsiderable, budget between striker and right winger

I have all sorts of thoughts about the Marc Guehi transfer.

I’m not convinced he is a £70m player. He was relative unknown prior to playing in the Euros for England. He made the squad largely on the back of Crystal Palace’s performances in the the 23/24 season but there again, he only started 23 Premier League matches in that last campaign due to a knee injury.

True, his stock rose considerably when he became one of England’s only performers at the Euros, but was the England defence really tested by Denmark, Slovenia, Netherlands or Slovakia? Well… yes, but not in the same way as it would have been had we faced, France, Germany or Portugal.

It’s not like Marc Guehi was up against Mbappe or Musiala. I would have expected that even Harry Maguire could have looked good in England’s defence up to the final.

Marc Guehi is a graduate of the Chelsea academy, but then again, so are half of the players in the Premier League.

He has represented England at every level and was Crystal Palace’s third most expensive signing at £18m pounds. There is no doubt that there is a player there with potential for improvement. A good ball playing centre half and I do think he would have been a solid addition. Not for £70m though.

In the PSR world, every penny counts. Get it wrong and panic leads you to consider the unthinkable.

There is a reason that few of the septics are splashing the cash like they did several years ago.

Look at Liverpool’s spend. Spurs forked out £65m on Solanke but they have been canny in trading to raise and spend funds sensibly. Man City have done very little business and Villa have spent, but are playing Champions League, sold one of their best players and so have a little more money to spend. Nobody in the Premier League spent £70m on one player this summer, not even Chelsea.

Why is it that nobody else is chasing Marc Guehi?

At £50m there were no other takers, at least not reported.

Steve Parish has spent most of this window trying to drum up interest from other clubs, but in the end, Newcastle have been caught up in a bidding war with themselves.

I absolutely get the hesitation from our side in paying whatever Steve Parish wants. I’m not sure anyone knows what Steve Parish really wants though. I don’t even think he does. I have no doubt that his motivation to sell, changed as the window started to close, when one defender left the club and another got crocked. Newcastle must have had encouragement from Palace to pursue a deal. The player must also have expressed a desire to move north. Is Steve Parish having a laugh at our expense? Is he part of the cockney mafia trying to undermine our rise to prominence? Is he just indecisive?

I think Steve Parish will come to regret not accepting the offer that was left on the table as the transfer deadline day approached. The only way he comes out of this with any credibility is if Marc Guehi signs a new long-term contract. I have to think that Guehi’s agent has indicated that he might. Parish must know that Marc Guehi’s value will decrease otherwise. He is not playing major international tournament football between now and next summer and Palace are off to a bit of a slow start.

That puts him in Fenwick’s shop window on Boxing Day. Even if Palace pull out performances like they did last season, I doubt anyone is going to pay more than £70m for Guehi as he runs down his contract. Is anyone paying £70m in January? Nope. New contract or not, the market is slowing. I’m convinced that the days of the sky-high transfer fees approaching and exceeding £100m are numbered. Maybe PSR is a good thing after all.

I am more than happy that our club’s senior management held firm in not giving into Palace’s off field games. Glasner and Parish chest pump that they have managed to hang onto their England star like they have just won a David vs Goliath battle, but the truth is, they were always open to selling.

To outsiders, it might seem that our new Director or Football spent the last six weeks sipping Moet in the Savoy in London waiting for the phone to ring, but I’m sure that there has been no lack of effort on his part. I am also of the opinion that we were looking at other targets and respect the position of the club and manager in that we will not bring in players who are not the right fit, or not better than what we have.

Not having to spend £70m on one player is certainly going to help the PSR situation and makes it less likely that we must sell our superstars.

The flipside to that, is that some of our superstars may take this as a lack of ambition and seek other routes to footballing glory.