Sunderland set to secure £26m Dayann Methalie deal

Sunderland are closing in on the signing of Dayann Methalie from Toulouse, hijacking a long-running Newcastle United target and making a £26m statement about where they intend to go under Régis Le Bris.

Methalie, a France Under-21 international who made 27 Ligue 1 appearances last season, has been tracked heavily by Newcastle’s recruitment team for months. Scouts went back to watch him again and again; the club even explored a move in January. On paper, he looked like the prototype for their current model: 20 years old, high ceiling, and a price neatly inside the £20m-£40m band they have tried to live in.

And yet, when the moment came, Newcastle stepped away. No bid this summer. No late scramble. The club have indicated they decided against pushing for the defender, even as the market around him began to heat up.

Sunderland stepped into the gap.

Le Bris is now close to landing a 6ft 2in defender who can play left-back, wingback or on the left of a central pairing, and who has the physical profile to survive the Premier League’s heavier traffic. Methalie is understood to have verbally agreed a five-year deal at the Stadium of Light, drawn by Europa League football and a dressing room that will not feel foreign.

Le Bris will not just be his coach but his compatriot. Around him, a growing French-speaking core is taking shape: Enzo Le Fée, Nordi Mukiele and Habib Diarra already in place, with Methalie set to join that cluster. For a young defender leaving home for the first time, those details matter.

He will arrive as Le Bris’s second signing of the summer, following the free-transfer capture of Belgium right-back Thomas Meunier from Lille. One comes for nothing, the other at £26m. Together they begin to redraw Sunderland’s back line.

Methalie will not walk straight into a guaranteed starting berth. Reinildo stands in his way at left-back and has his own reputation for rugged reliability. But that is only part of the picture. Methalie’s blend of recovery speed, strength in the duel and a confident left foot has already allowed Toulouse coaches to use him as a left-sided centre-back in both a back three and a back four.

That versatility is what clubs pay for. It is also what Newcastle will now have to find elsewhere.

While Sunderland close on one of the window’s more intriguing defensive prospects, Newcastle’s own full-back rebuild remains unfinished. Eddie Howe still wants cover on both flanks, but right-back has become a particular concern after Kieran Trippier’s departure at the end of last season removed both a leader and a set-piece specialist from his dressing room.

Newcastle’s summer, though, is being shaped less by who they bring in and more by what happens to two of their established midfielders.

Bruno Guimarães remains the pivot of the entire project. Howe’s hopes of keeping his 28-year-old captain appear to hinge on Arsenal’s appetite for a deal in the region of £80m. Arsenal’s interest is known; their willingness to go that high is not. Guimarães has been on holiday in Brazil after the World Cup and is due back on Tyneside on Friday, before flying out with the rest of the first-team squad to a training camp in La Manga.

By then, the picture might be clearer. Or the uncertainty might deepen.

Joe Willock’s situation is more straightforward but no less delicate. Besiktas have already tested Newcastle’s resolve with an offer in the region of £10m for the former Arsenal midfielder. That bid was rejected, yet the door has not been slammed shut. Newcastle are open to a sale, but only at closer to £20m.

So as Sunderland prepare to unveil a young French defender as the symbol of their European push, Newcastle find themselves juggling exits, budgets and gaps at full-back. One club seizing an opportunity, the other trying to avoid losing too much ground in a window that is starting to move without them.