Newcastle transfer news: 'Why would Bas Dost want to go there when he can play in the Champions League with us?'

Striker has been linked with a move to St James' Park

(Getty Images)

Newcastle target Bas Dost has been urged to stay where he is by Wolfsburg coach Dieter Hecking.

The 26-year-old Holland international has been linked with a summer switch to St James' Park as new head coach Steve McClaren attempts to rebuild a squad which ended last season battling relegation.

McClaren knows Dost from his time in the Eredivisie, but Hecking is determined to keep the forward in Germany.

He told the Wolfsburger Allgemeine: "Why would he go there? He can play next season in the Champions League with us. He will probably [play in the Champions League] neither in this nor in the next or the next year at Newcastle."

Dost scored 19 goals last season - four of them in a 5-4 Bundesliga victory at Bayer Leverkusen in February - as Wolfsburg finished runners-up to Bayern Munich, but his future has been thrown into doubt by the impending arrival of Germany international Max Kruse from Borussia Monchengladbach.

But Hecking insisted the club has no immediate appetite to cash in on the Dutchman despite being able to demand a sizeable fee for him.

The Magpies are currently engaged in a battle to bring QPR frontman Charlie Austin to St James' Park, but Dost is another man identified as a target during talks between McClaren, chief scout Graham Carr and managing director Lee Charnley, the man who will have to do the deals during an extensive summer recruitment drive.

PA