UK Edition
Newcastle United interested in signing Danny Ings as Kenedy deal moves closer to completion
Newcastle United are hoping to complete the signing of Chelsea winger Kenedy next week and retain an interest in Liverpool striker Danny Ings as manager Rafa Benitez continues to push owner Mike Ashley to allow him to strengthen the squad.
A deal for Kenedy has effectively been in place since the summer, but Newcastle have been waiting for Chelsea to bring in a replacement and Benitez suspects the arrival of Everton forward Ross Barkley will enable the transfer to go ahead in the coming days.
Kenedy can play as an attacking left back or a more traditional winger and Benitez hopes the Brazilian will be the first of three or four new faces to arrive, although he may have to move players out with Aleksandar Mitrovic, Henri Saivet and Jack Colback available to buy this month.
Despite still not being told what his transfer budget is, Benitez had a conversation with Newcastle owner Mike Ashley just before Christmas and they both agreed the squad needed to be improved in this window.
Although Benitez is frustrated at not knowing what sort of money he has to spend, he has given managing director Lee Charnley a list of targets and is confident the club will deliver some of them before deadline day.
One of those is Ings. Although the striker has indicated he wants to fight for his place at Liverpool, rather than leave on loan, Newcastle remain interested in the former Burnley player and have not conceded defeat in their bid to sign him.
Instead it is a deal that could be revived later in the window when the player realises his first team opportunities will be severely restricted if he remains at Anfield.
Newcastle are also looking at other attacking options, but dropped out of the race to sign Everton target Cenk Tosun when Besiktas’ asking price almost doubled from £15m to £27m since August.
Newcastle took seven points from a possible 12 over the Christmas period to ease their relegation fears and although Benitez will make changes to the team that takes on Luton in the FA Cup on Saturday, he insisted it will still be a strong side.
"My focus is to win the next game and go through, and then see what happens,” said Benitez. “It is one game at a time. We have to make sure that our team is strong enough to compete and win. That's it.
"We will do that. We have one game this week, one game next week, so it's not that we have to manage the squad and be very careful.”