‘I’VE LEARNED LESSON AFTER PEREZ DEAL’
NEWCASTLE will put punitive buy-out clauses in all future player contracts — after being caught out by Leicester over Ayoze Perez. The forward, one of Newcastle’s stand-out players under Rafa Benitez last season, was bought for £30million this summer, after Leicester triggered his release clause. And Newcastle owner Mike Ashley admits it was an error to only set Perez’s fee at £30m, having paid one tenth of that to get him from Tenerife in 2014. ‘We didn’t want to sell Perez, but had no option once Leicester reached that figure,’ he explained. ‘These clauses are the highest you think the player will accept, so he can’t batter your door down and demand to be sold for £10m. I don’t care what people say, it’s very difficult to keep a player when they want to go. The age of slavery is dead. But we’ve learned our lesson on release clauses.’ Ashley was equally adamant that promising young midfielder Sean Longstaff will not be sold to Manchester United. Echoing the words of manager Steve Bruce, Ashley added: ‘The message we want to put out is that he is not for sale. If you’ve got one like Sean — keep him.’