Corentin Tolisso in action against Crvena Zvezda in the Champions League (Getty Images)
According to Jeunes Footeux (h/t The Shields Gazette), Newcastle United are interested in getting a deal over the line for Bayern Munich fringe star Corentin Tolisso. The Frenchman has suffered for minutes under Julian Nagelsmann and is likely to leave the club soon.
A product of the Olympique Lyon academy, Tolisso featured for the senior team in 2014 before making the switch to Germany in 2017. The midfielder was a part of the 2018 France side that won the World Cup in Russia. He also helped Bayern lift the Champions League trophy in 2020. But the 27-year-old could now be about to depart the Allianz Arena.
Is this a good time for him to leave the Bavarian giants? And is this a smart move for Newcastle United as they search for marquee signings under their new owners?
The Bayern star has made 160 appearances for the German club so far, scoring 29 times and setting up 17 more in the process. That is not a bad feat for any central midfielder, but he could have featured more. The brilliance of Leon Goretzka and Joshua Kimmich, coupled with the emergence of Jamal Musiala, have restricted most midfielders, including Tolisso, from getting consistent game-time.
The trio plays together for Germany as well and shares a good understanding. This has put the Frenchman on the bench for the better part of this season as he has only racked up 352 minutes of action across all competitions. However, several clubs are now lining up a move for him.
Newcastle United are amongst them, after recently becoming one of the richest clubs in the world. The Saudi-led consortium is ready to splash the cash, and Tolisso is not a bad place to start. He is at a good age and has tons of experience under his belt. The Toon Army lack a quality foreign midfielder, and the French international would certainly boost the talent in the ranks.
However, there is no guarantee whether the player views the Geordies as an exciting project. They are currently battling relegation, a situation no player would like to be in. But that is not to say that a move cannot be possible as there have been such left-sided transfers previously when Renato Sanches joined Swansea City or Xherdan Shaqiri joined Stoke City.
Unlike those clubs, the Magpies are on the up. They have the money to put where their mouth is, and Eddie Howe is one of the modern English managers. The Toons have something exciting going on at St. James’ Park and it remains to be seen if Tolisso would be a player willing to partake in the project.
The St. James’ Park outfit are now a rich club but might not have to use any of that money to sign Tolisso when it comes to transfer fees. The Frenchman is out of contract next summer and will become available as a free agent if he doesn’t put pen to paper on a new deal at the German club. However, the Toon Army are the not only English club interested in signing him.
Liverpool and Arsenal are also eager to sign him, and they can offer the prospect of European football. Although Newcastle cannot do the same, it is common knowledge that they have the cash to spend on wages now. A signing-on fee is also not the rarest phenomenon during free transfers, but it is not known if that could be a possibility in any deal for Tolisso.
The Geordies may not have been a dream club for him in recent years considering he has been strutting his stuff at one of the world’s biggest clubs in Bayern, but stranger things have happened in football, and it is a transfer that could be the beginning of the new era under Eddie Howe- one they should not think twice before investing in.
