Newcastle United’s biggest stars are being tracked by top clubs around Europe, all with varying degrees of believability.
While we are getting anxious over the futures of Tino Livramento, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon, we feel pretty comfortable ignoring the constant chatter about Bruno Guimaraes.
Indeed, we’re pretty much resigned to losing Tino, whereas we’re not fully sure which way it will go for Gordon and Sandro, but it is feeling more likely that we’re going to have to replace both this summer.
It would take something astonishing to detach Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle, though, and we also believe that to be the case for Lewis Hall, too, who is now, according to Spanish outlet Sport (via Sport Witness), attracting interest from Barcelona.
After Hall kept Lamine Yamal in his pocket for three quarters of the tie against Barcelona this month, it makes sense that the Catalan giants would be impressed.
Sport believes that Alejandro Balde is likely to leave the Nou Camp this summer, and that Hall is one a three-man shortlist to replace him, with Alejandro Grimaldo of Bayer Leverkusen and Juventus’ Andrea Cambiaso joining Hall on the list.
Where the wheels fall off this story is that Sport lists Hall’s valuation at €30 million (£26 million), which is less than we paid Chelsea for him in 2024. To say that he’s developed and improved since then would be an understatement, so that valuation is, frankly, hilarious and makes a mockery of the story.
Newcastle are said to be hopeful of tying Hall down to a new deal. Given his love for the club, his admiration of Eddie Howe and the fact that he’s still undergoing development at Newcastle, we feel he’ll make the right choice and commit his future here for a bit longer at least.
Even if we are bracing for a mass exodus of top players in the summer, we’d be very, very surprised if Hall is one of them, and if he is, we’d expect we’re compensated way more than £30 million for him.
If Hall becomes the starting left-back for England at the World Cup and acquits himself well there, then we can expect many more stories about a potential move, but all it will do as far as we’re concerned is add more digits to his value, which will put buyers off. We hope, anyway.