Debuchy Deal Dead? Sabres Being Rattled, At Least.

The Twitters are overflowing with links to the l'Equipe article that indicates that Lille's president has "decided that Mathieu will stay" and the commensurate reactions up to and including "we mustn't have wanted him anyway". There is ample time for a deal to be done still yet, and we've all seen this kind of posturing and sabre rattling many times before in the transfer market. I would not be surprised to see Mathieu Debuchy in the black and whites of Newcastle United still yet... and I would not be surprised if it does not occur. When clubs have played hardball on transfer fees in the recent past, we've shown ourselves just as likely to take our toys and go home as to work through and complete a deal.

I saw a tweet that suggested that the person was not concerned about Debuchy not coming, but was concerned about "the knock-on effect" on Yohan Cabaye. I don't really see much in this- if a player suffered adverse affects every time they didn't get to play with a potential teammate that they really want to play with, there would not be a happy footballer on the planet. The comment did get me thinking, though. One part of the tweet kept rolling through my head (making a quite distracting rattling sound). Perhaps there is a knock-on effect if this deal does not go through.

I don't think that the knock-on effect happens with Yohan Cabaye. I think a breakdown in this deal ultimately affects Danny Simpson and Mike Ashley's bottom line. As a player that has been ... reluctant to sign a contract extension with the club in the first place, you can sit pretty certain that he's not feeling wanted following a protracted pursuit of a player that would be his direct replacement. If he wasn't feeling like signing an extension before, he certainly isn't going to want to now. Now that our hand has been played with regard to the right back position, there would seem to be a real need to complete a deal during the summer window. If we end up into the January window without a replacement for Danny, there will be a very real likelihood that we not only don't end up with a direct replacement at RB, but we will lose Simpson on a free next summer. Playing hardball is great, but it could end up resulting in losing out on a marketable asset. Granted, Simmo's not going to bring in £7m or anything close, but certainly he would bring enough millions to provide impetus for us to complete a deal to ensure we can cash him in while we still can.