Saint-Maximin Signs
Newcastle United today completed the signing of Allan Irénée Saint-Maximin from OGC Nice in a deal worth up to £20m for the French club.
An initial fee of £16.5m shows a tidy profit for Nice having signed the player from Monaco just two years ago for £9m.
The signing of Allan ends a 6 month chase for a player that had become heated over the last day or so, when after playing in a friendly loss against Burnley he caught further attention from a host of teams, and in particular Watford.
That seemed to spur United into action with Lee Charnley taking personal responsibility for the deal and flying to France to get this one ‘over the line’.
Saint-Maximin started his career at St-Etienne at the age of just 16 but was soon spotted by Monaco’s talent scouts and moved to the principality just two seasons later.
The talented wing man was loaned out many times in his early career including to German side Hannover 96.
As recently as a week ago the player seemed committed to a move to Tyneside however, reportedly informing his teammates of his desire to join the Mags.
The French U21 International can play anywhere across the front line, although he prefers to play on the right of a three or on the right wing. Indeed such is the potential of the player he has been capped no less than 32 times at every level of junior International football, scoring 9 times.
In domestic football he played 34 times in the league for Nice last campaign, scoring 6 times and setting up another 5. In Ligue 1 he has a scoring ratio of better than 1 every 10 games in fact, with another 17 assists in 111 games.
Known for his lighting pace and trickery Allan made more dibbles last season than any other player in Europe. Quite a stat when you think of who he’s up against.
And with the directness of Miggy and the powerhouse that is Joelinton, maybe, just maybe, Newcastle United finally have a permanent front line worthy of writing home about for the fist time in quite a while.