knee ligament injury<\/a>.<\/p>\nThey have since intensified efforts to strike a deal with their Bundesliga counterparts and the player, who favours a move to Villa Park.<\/p>\n
Manzambi excelled against Villa in May\u2019s Europa League final and impressed for Switzerland in their run to the World Cup quarter-finals. He can operate in multiple positions and his arrival would boost Villa before their return to Champions League football next season.<\/p>\n
The finances have never been an issue for Newcastle but other suitors were always in contention, which produced caution at St James\u2019 Park about the chances of landing him.<\/p>\n
Newcastle executives traveled to Germany last week in a bid to close a deal but given the delay also accelerated on other targets in the background and had never been fully convinced he wanted to join.<\/p>\n
Manzambi came through the academy of Swiss club Servette before joining the Freiburg youth set up. He has made 58 first-team appearances, scoring eight goals and providing 11 assists.<\/p>\n
He made 47 appearances in the 2025-26 campaign, recording seven goals and nine assists as Freiburg finished seventh in the Bundesliga, and played a prominent role in their run to the Europa League final.<\/p>\n
At the World Cup this summer Manzambi scored twice after being introduced from the bench for the final 19 minutes of Switzerland\u2019s 4-1 group-stage win against Bosnia and Herzegovina. He scored again after starting the 2-1 win over co-hosts Canada in their final group game.<\/p>\n
A huge blow for Newcastle<\/p>\n
Analysis from Newcastle United correspondent Chris Waugh<\/p>\n
There has been an understandable anxiety among the Newcastle fan-base when it comes to Manzambi, given how the club were gazumped by Liverpool for Victor Munoz last month (and by several clubs for multiple players last summer).<\/p>\n
Inside Newcastle, they have been cautious, if optimistic, that a deal for the Switzerland international could be concluded. But they have been aware of alternative options for Manzambi throughout and they were sober enough to the possibility that a rival may try and pip them to the deal.<\/p>\n
Newcastle have pushed hard, with the executive team holding face-to-face talks with Freiburg and also trying to convince the player, his camp and his family as to why St James\u2019 Park is where his development would be best served.<\/p>\n
But Newcastle cannot offer Champions League football, or European football of any capacity, and that left them vulnerable again in these talks. It is not the club\u2019s fault that a deal was not concluded sooner, as the player wanted to wait until Switzerland were eliminated from the World Cup before determining his future, which only occurred on Saturday.<\/p>\n
If Manzambi does opt for Villa over Newcastle, then it will be a huge blow to Eddie Howe\u2019s transfer plans and it is unclear where the club will turn next, even if they have been considering alternatives in case this scenario unfolded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aston Villa are in the process of finalising a move to sign midfielder Johan Manzambi from Freiburg. Manzambi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2604,218,941,221,101,4161,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-688210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-aston-villa","tag-football","tag-newcastle-united","tag-premier-league","tag-sports","tag-switzerland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}