Newcastle United midfielder Yohan Cabaye claims that his former Lille team-mate Mathieu Debuchy has his heart set on a move to the club and urged the two sides to come to an agreement.
The 26-year-old Debuchy has long been linked with a move to the Magpies but Lille have dragged their feet, first of all citing the need to recruit a replacement before letting Debuchy leave and then insisting that any replacement has a year of integration into the squad before they sell Debuchy. The French side signed 19-year-old right-back Djibril Sidibe from Troyes last week.
France international Debuchy has already voiced his frustration about not being allowed to leave Lille, where he has spent his entire professional career and Cabaye said at the weekend that he hopes the deal will go through.
“Mathieu has made a very difficult to decision to leave Lille but he has made the decision,” Cabaye told The Journal from Newcastle’s pre-season base in Portugal.
“Now I hope Newcastle push for Mathieu and I want them to do the deal,” he said.
“I spoke with him two days ago and he told me he wants to come. I hope Derek [Llambias] and Mike Ashley will do the business now.
“He wants to play for Newcastle and I hope that he comes to Newcastle because, of course, he is my friend but also a very good player for Newcastle.”
Another north-east newspaper, the Chronicle, claims that the Debuchy deal could be wrapped up as early as Wednesday. Alan Pardew and the rest of the Newcastle squad are due back on Tyneside tomorrow and the paper claims that a fee and personal terms have been agreed and that a speedy resolution to the long, drawn-out saga could be on the cards.
However, reports from France claim that Inter Milan are still interested in Debuchy. The Serie A side were linked with interest in the right-back earlier this month when Inter defender Maicon was being linked with a move to Chelsea, but despite that deal having stalled reports are claiming that Inter are still keen on Debuchy and could lodge a bid of around 10million euro (£7.8million).
Newcastle have already had one bid of £4million for Debuchy rejected by Lille and were being linked with a £6million bid.
