The media has been full of stories of the pursuit of Southampton's Tino Livramento , now it seems they are about to launch one last bid, but it will come with an ultimatum, take it or we will go elsewhere.
The North East is rife with Newcastle United's desire to make Tino Livramento a member of the Toon Army and now according to nufcblog.co.uk they are about to say take this offer or we will walk away.
We reported yesterday that the North East club were "frustrated" with Southampton's alleged moving of the goalposts on the price of Tino Livramento, the claim was that after intimating that they would accept £30 million for the player, Saints then upped the price to £40 million.
Now Newcastle are about to put one final bid on the table and that one will come with the message "Take it or leave it"
The first thing to mention is that the goalposts were first moved by Newcastle, after their first derisory off of £15 million, they are now at somewhere around twice that amount, whether the £30 million that was claimed as their latest bid yesterday is that final ultimatum or whether there is one last increased offer to come is unclear.
The nufcblog.co.uk have this to say on the matter.
"There was a belief that the two clubs were close to agreement, but the Saints appeared to have moved the goalposts at the last minute and are demanding £40m for the full-back, which has frustrated Newcastle.
"It’s believed that the price was raised due to a hefty sell-on clause that Chelsea have on their former right-back. As a result, Southampton want to make sure that they still receiving a decent amount despite the clause.
"Livramento is a very talented young player with bags of potential, but £40m would be a huge risk given that he is coming off the back of an ACL injury and rarely played last season.
"Instead, we will return with a final offer of £30m and put the pressure on the Saints, as they could risk losing out on a significant fee for the 20-year-old."
The mistake that they are making up there though is that there is pressure on Saints, we would prefer Livramento to be a Saints player and be a key part of of our bid to get back into the Premier League, we have him under contract for the next three years, yes there is a risk that he will not be the player he was before his ACL injury, but in the final games of last season and in the initial pre season friendlies, there is no sign that there is any long term after affects either physical or mental.
It should also be noted that 18 months ago signed another full back in Ex Saint Matt Targett, now if the then 26 year old Targett, a reliable if journeyman left back was worth 15 million, the initial amount Newcastle offered for Tino, then surely he is actually worth more than double that.
So where is the pressure on us, we have a player that Newcastle want, they have the money to pay for him, indeed they have the money to buy Southampton Football Club outright and then give Livramento a free transfer if they so desired, that is the state of football in the UK at the moment.
So the pressure is on Newcastle United, they want to be the biggest club in the World, they want to emulate Manchester City in England and indeed Europe, if they want to do that then they have to act like that, pay the going rate asked and not haggle, don't irritate selling clubs by making insulting offers, show you mean business by acting in a business manner, that means making offers that are both reasonable and realistic.