Finance football guru Kieran Maguire has dropped a claim on the potential takeover of Newcastle United by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) group.

This comes after the news emerged (via NUFC) that both Allan Saint-Maximin and Miguel Almiron would be out until April after suffering knee and groin injuries respectively, adding to the already injured Callum Wilson in what is a devastating blow to their forward line.

Speaking to Football Insider, Maguire has claimed that any potential buyers would have been 'discouraged' and 'uncomfortable' with the injury news, as it means that Steve Bruce's team are more likely to be relegated from the Premier League down to the EFL Championship because of it, which in turn would mean that they would be more reluctant to pay the asking price set by Mike Ashley:

“The price that somebody is going to pay will be determined to a certain extent by where the club is going to be next season.

“If you have those three players injured, any interested party is going to be discouraged.

“If Mike Ashley says, ‘it’s £300m or nothing’, they are going to say ‘nothing’ because this is increasing the chances of relegation. Newcastle in the Championship are worth less money.

“There’s no guarantee they will bounce back straight away. They have done on the last two occasions but if they do spend two or three seasons in the Championship, why pay £300m when you can buy Derby County for £60m?

“These injuries and Newcastle’s poor form recently has got potential bidders feeling uncomfortable because they don’t exactly know what they’re buying into.”

Newcastle injuries a big blow

For the North East club to lose arguably their three best players going forward to injury is a big blow to their hopes of surviving in the top flight.

As Maguire suggests, the Magpies being down in the Championship may be less attractive to any potential bidders, including the KSA consortium, and so it may result in a stand-off in terms of the kind of money that Ashley would demand for them to pay to take over.

In other news, find out which 'outstanding' talent Lee Clark has urged NUFC to sign here!