Yoane Wissa close to Newcastle debut after waiving lucrative Brentford bonus in talks with owner

Yoane Wissa is close to a Newcastle United return and could be named in the match-day squad to face Burnley on Saturday, talkSPORT understands.

The 29-year-old is yet to make his Magpies debut after picking up a knee injury on international duty for DR Congo following a £55million move from Brentford on deadline day last summer.

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After joining Newcastle, Wissa scored and assisted in Congo’s 4-1 victory over South Sudan in September before sustaining the injury in a 3-2 loss to Senegal.

It means he has not played as Newcastle’s new number nine, but has been working hard behind the scenes to regain full fitness and is now back in team training.

Newcastle’s performance director, James Bunce, has played an important role in getting Wissa ready for a return.

Eddie Howe and co. are expected to decide on Friday whether to now name him in the squad to face Burnley.

Wissa has also chosen not to go to the Africa Cup of Nations with Congo this winter in order to focus on club football.

After conversations with both Newcastle and Congo manager Sebastian Desabre, all parties agreed it was better to focus on Newcastle, given Wissa hasn’t played for six months.

The striker did everything possible to make his big-money summer transfer to St James’ Park happen.

talkSPORT understands he waived a bonus owed to him by Brentford.

And after Newcastle agreed to pay a £55m fee, which includes £5m in add-ons, Wissa even made a wage concession to make the overall cost of the transfer more affordable to his new club.

He also spoke directly with Brentford owner Matthew Benham in order to clear the air and leave on good terms in a meeting that lasted around two hours.

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It followed a difficult summer in which Wissa had left Brentford’s pre-season training camp in Portugal in order to explore a move away.

Wissa played 149 times for Brentford, scoring 49 goals, including 20 in all competitions last season.

19 of his goals for the Bees came in the Premier League, a career high for him in a single season.

He was sold on the Newcastle move as soon as he learned of their interest and is understood to relish the pressure of wearing the number nine jersey, following in the footsteps of Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand, Andy Cole, Kevin Keegan and Chris Waddle.

And he is close to realising a career-long dream of playing in the Champions League for the first time in his career. This was a big selling point in making the switch to Newcastle.

And after a long wait, his Champions League debut could be just days away as Newcastle travel to Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday.

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What has Howe said on Wissa?

Newcastle boss Howe has often given updates on Wissa’s recovery and he admitted that he’s close to returning to action.

Speaking earlier this week, he said: “Yoane participated in an 11v11 training game while we were at Everton. He’ll have another one at some stage this week and we’ll see how close he is.”

And then ahead of the Magpies’ clash against Burnley, Howe added: “I don’t know, we will see how the week goes. We’ve got a lot more training to do, so we’ll see.”

If Wissa doesn’t make it into the Newcastle squad at the weekend, a debut in the Champions League becomes likely.

And commentary of his side’s clash against Bayer Leverkusen will be live on talkSPORT on Wednesday.

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