... Newcastle United are "confident" of getting their money back on Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, but no fee has been confirmed, nor are AS Roma obliged to buy!
The French defender is currently on loan at the Italian club, but "loan" is the key word.
United paid £6.7million for Yanga-Mbiwa and the agreed loan is until the end of the season, with an option to buy.
Although it was made public Roma wanted to wrap up the deal this month, that seems to be wide of the mark.
Lee Charnley (who handles the deals, and some suggests PICKS the players we sign) claims that he did have a replacement lined up for Yanga-Mbiwa in the summer but the deal "fell through".
However, they still pushed on and moved Yanga-Mbiwa to Roma.
Lee Charnley (talking to the media yesterday): “Because the deal with AS Roma took longer than expected, the replacement transfer was no longer possible.
”But Newcastle have stood by their decision to loan Yanga-Mbiwa out despite some defensive woes this season so far.
“The club’s view was that the deal to allow Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa to leave was in the interests of all parties and, after taking the medium-to-long term view, the club let him leave.”
The player had a whole new fan club following his fabulous display against Man City in the Champions League in September, but not so much this week.
Bayern Munich struck five times in the first half en route to a 7-1 demolition of hosts Roma on Wednesday.
The Germans dominated the early exchanges at the Stadio Olimpico and deservedly took the lead in the ninth minute thanks to Arjen Robben's trademark bending effort.
Mario Gotze doubled Bayern's advantage midway through the first half and Robert Lewandowski scored a third two minutes later.
Polish forward Lewandowski then set up Robben's second on the half-hour mark to silence most of the 65,000 spectators.
After 36 minutes, Thomas Muller made it 5-0 when he converted from the penalty spot following a handball by Kostas Manolas.
Roma's Gervinho struck in the 66th minute but Franck Ribery and Xherdan Shaqiri came off the bench to add two more goals for the visitors before the final whistle.