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Marseille not looking to offload Toon target Remy

Marseille are not desperate to offload Loic Remy © PA Photos

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Newcastle United may not be as close to a deal to bring Loic Remy to Tyneside as it seems with Marseille president Vincent Labrune insisting he is "not looking for a way out for Loic".

Labrune met agent Willie McKay in London on Tuesday, which many took as a significant step towards Remy, 25, quitting the Stade Velodrome. Though the player has been strongly linked to the Magpies as well as West Ham United and Queens Park Rangers, the OM president insisted otherwise.

"It was a private trip. I'm not looking for a way out for Loic," Labrune is reported as saying in Le Parisien newspaper. "I like him, and I know his potential."

While that talent brought Remy 27 league goals in 60 top-flight appearances in his first two seasons at OM, it has been only intermittently seen in the current campaign during which injury has limited the French international striker to just two league starts and a single goal. Off the pitch he has had problems too with a student from Toulon claiming the player is the father of her 13-month-old son.

OM owner Margarita Louis-Dreyfus is keen to stop bankrolling the club, but though the 1993 European champions only spent modestly last summer, Labrune revealed the winter transfer window will not necessarily see assets such as Remy cashed in and may even include players being added to Elie Baup's squad.

"Our finances are healthy," said Labrune, whose side lie third, level on points with leaders Paris Saint-Germain, ahead of Sunday's final league game of the year at home to Saint-Etienne. "I don't have to sell this winter, we're rather in a position to buy one or two players to help continue the best start to a season the club has made in nearly 20 years."

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