Incredibly driven’ Newcastle United player linked with January exit refuses to rule out move

Newcastle United could be prepared to sanction an exit or two in January as the squad overhaul continues.

Eddie Howe had six new players added to his squad in the summer, and while the squad is still thinner than he’d like, there’s certainly room to manoeuvre a player or two out of the club to make space for more incomings.

One player who has been linked with a potential January exit is Sweden international Emil Krafth, who has been a dependable backup for Eddie Howe over the years without really troubling the established order.

Howe once called Krafth ‘incredibly driven’ when discussing his first-team options (via Newcastle World), and while the gaffer has nothing but good things to say about ‘Krafu’, the reality is, we can do better.

Advertisement

FC Copenhagen want Emil Krafth, but wages could be a problem

FC Copenhagen have been credited with an interest in a January move for Krafth, but his agent recently spoke about how Krafth’s current £55,000-a-week wages could prove to be a huge stumbling block with Scandinavian clubs not able to pay anywhere near the same money as the Premier League.

However, Emil Krafth doesn’t appear to have fully ruled out taking a pay cut to move somewhere where he can get regular first-team football, as he told Fotboll Skanalen.

“I don’t know. I have no idea. I haven’t heard anything from Copenhagen. I’ve only read about it in the newspapers. No contact has been made. I’m at Newcastle and I’m focusing on that.

“If you compare a Premier League club with a club in Scandinavia, it’s clear that I earn more in the Premier League. Everyone does. But that’s all I know.

“I can’t comment on that because I haven’t received any questions [from FCK]. If you haven’t received the question, you can’t know what’s going to happen. If the question comes, I’ll have to comment on it.”

Advertisement

Can Newcastle afford to let Emil Krafth leave?

Not that we’re trying to force him to leave Newcastle, but we feel a move to Copenhagen would be a good one for him at this stage of his career.

His chances of getting minutes at Newcastle are only going to decrease, but at FCK, he could be a regular starter, and if Graham Potter manages to get Sweden to the World Cup by some big miracle, Krafth would want to be playing regularly to keep himself in the frame.

Of course, the issue Newcastle has is that Tino Livramento’s injury record is a tad spotty, which only leaves Kieran Trippier as back-up without Krafth. We would need a replacement.