Newcastle boss Alan Pardew is not aware of any Barcelona bid for Yohan Cabaye and claims an £8million offer would not be enough.
Newcastle boss plays down reports of Barcelona interest
Newcastle boss Alan Pardew is not aware of any Barcelona bid for Yohan Cabaye and claims an £8million offer would not be enough.
Reports on Wednesday suggested that Barca were preparing a bid for Newcastle's French midfielder, but Pardew said the club have had no contact and would not consider an offer of that size.
The 26-year-old midfielder joined Newcastle from Lille for £4.8million and is considered one of the buys of last season.
A number of Newcastle players have been linked with moves away from the club, but Pardew says that only huge offers will be considered for players such as Cabaye, goalkeeper Tim Krul and midfielder Cheick Tiote.
"The interest [in Cabaye] is purely speculative," Pardew said. "We have had no contact and certainly no offer, and obviously we wouldn't even consider an offer anywhere near that region."
Pardew did admit, however, that the club would sell key players if they received an offer they could not refuse.
Compete
"I really don't think as a manager you can beat yourself up about it because we are what we are, we can't compete with those really big guns," said Pardew.
"If they come and they want to pay - and it's going to be very, very expensive for someone like him [Cabaye]. Trust me, he will be inflated - then we have to then go to plan B, which is to get a replacement.
"We like to think we are going to deal with stories like that about all our players. You could say [Papiss] Cisse, [Demba] Ba, Cheick Tiote, Tim Krul, Cabaye, [Fabricio] Coloccini - we have got some great players here.
"The type of club we are, where we are not in the higher reaches of European football, we haven't got that finance and our players are going to be linked to other clubs.
"It's flattering to us and to Cabaye to be linked with Barcelona.
"I probably leaked it myself," he joked.
