Brentford striker Yoane Wissa has reportedly ‘left’ the team’s pre-season training base for talks with the director of football as Newcastle efforts ‘have intensified’ in recent days.
The Bees are in danger of losing their two best players in quick succession. Bryan Mbeumo has just left in a transfer to Manchester United worth north of £70million after he was directly involved in 28 Premier League goals last season.
Wissa might not be far behind, amid interest from Newcastle, Tottenham and Nottingham Forest.
The BBC reports that efforts from the Magpies to land Wissa have ‘intensified in the last 48 hours’. And there’s been a big development at Brentford, too.
The report states Wissa has ‘left the team’s pre-season base in Portugal amid growing uncertainty over his future’.
He is said to have returned to London and will now hold talks with director of football Phil Giles. Wissa himself is said to have been ‘unsettled’ by speculation regarding his future in recent weeks.
As such, it appears the talks will be to iron things out at the club, in regards to whether they would sell him. Indeed, the report suggests the meeting will be ‘pivotal towards how Brentford resolve Wissa’s future’.
When the team returns to London, if the striker is still a Bees player by then, he’s expected to join up with them.
However, the report suggests that the sale of the 29-year-old could be a ‘consideration’ given his age, £40million valuation and the fact that he has just a year left on his contract with Brentford.
Our friends at TEAMtalk have long suggested that Newcastle will push for Wissa, and they now state the forward wants to move on.
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Which side that is to remains to be seen, though, as it’s also believed that the striker would like to link up with his former Brentford boss Thomas Frank, who’s now at the helm at Tottenham.
Wissa played 149 games under Frank at Brentford, scoring 49 goals and assisting 13. Only Ivan Toney and Mbeumo have scored more goals under Frank.
What’s more, Wissa scored 19 goals and assisted another five in the Premier League last season, for his best return in four seasons in the English top flight.
Frank was clearly getting the best out of him at the back end, and Wissa also played himself into the kind of form which could conceivably earn him a big move.
READ MORE: Alexander Isak makes enormous contract demand to stay at Newcastle amid Liverpool interest
