At £10,770,000, Bruno Guimaraes is the fourth most expensive option available in SuperCoach EPL in 2026-2027, and the second most lucrative midfielder you can purchase, behind Bruno Fernandes.
It’s a serious outlay – do you build your squad around a player whose fee was determined due to his influence at Newcastle United, not the Premier League champions?
Well, Mikel Arteta is certainly doing that, luring the Brazilian to the Emirates Stadium as one of the pieces of his puzzle to keep the Gunners top of the table in England, while making that elusive next step in the UEFA Champions League, where they came so close last term.
Such was Guimaraes’ campaign as a talisman for Newcastle, his price increased by £1,300,000 last season, having opened the campaign at £8,160,000.
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He finished with 289 points, 22nd overall, but averaged 10 per game, the fifth most in the league. Of players who played more than one match (Walter Benitez the outlier), only EPL luminaries Fernandes, Erling Haaland and Brazilian teammate Gabriel Magalhaes were more consistent.
Arsenal will be hoping for a similar impact for a player who cost them $AUD 144 million (£75m) and Arteta believes he has the man to complement his current contingent of Martin Odegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Declan Rice, Martin Zubimendi, Mikel Merino and Eberechi Eze.
“I think he describes himself as a warrior,” Arteta said. “I think he’s a warrior with tremendous qualities as well and intuition, leadership and charisma that are going to help us.
“That is going to really ignite something different in the team. I’m delighted to have him.
“We see very clearly – especially the energy that he brought immediately to the training ground – the hunger, the desire to come here and create a big history at the club.
“That’s the ambition that we need. We want to go to the next level and are very, very much convinced that we’re going to need players with such a personality, desire and character to push everybody inside the organisation to go even higher.”
Daniel Garb joined David Weiner to run through everything you need to know about SuperCoach EPL this season.
Guimaraes, who joins fellow new arrivals Illan Meslier and Christos Tzolis at Arsenal, said: “From the first time I spoke to Berta and Mikel, I was excited.
“I just felt inside of me that I need a new challenge in my life, and, I think, to be an Arsenal player, is going to be an exciting challenge in my life.
“I think, after playing two World Cups, I’m at the point in my life that I need a challenge like this.
“I want to win trophies, I want to make history and I think I’m in the right place to do it. I’m so excited to start.”
Getting your midfielders right in SuperCoach EPL is key and with a nuanced points system, it is worth digging into, especially with so many attacking midfielders classified as forwards, you need to know how to extract points out of players who are, essentially, central midfielders.
SuperCoach EPL has points for key passes, accurate crosses, successful dribbles, tackles, aerials won, clearances, interceptions – a wide array of categories that reward midfielders who are complete packages.
Well, since joining the Premier League in February 2022 from France, Guimares has won more duels (1,030) and fouls (410) than any other player, while he also chimed in with nine goals and five assists last term too (throw in four assists for Brazil in five matches at the World Cup, for good measure). That included penalties, so it will be interesting to see if he has that responsibility in his new team, where Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz are world-class penalty merchants. Guimares is also known for picking up the odd yellow card, too, so be wary of that.
HIs 35 chances created in the Premier League last season is dwarfed by Fernandes and had him ranked in the 30s overall, but the Brazilian is now playing for a team in richer form and with quality players all around him.
While he started as a No.6, deeper style midfielder in the Premier League, Guimares has evolved into more of a No.8, a player with a high work rate and license to move around the park. This explains his high price in SuperCoach EPL, but also, his high score last season.
The risks? There’s obviously a settling in period, and with Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard already having licenses to attack, and rumours Martin Zubimendi might be available for sale, could that infer Guimaraes is going to play in a deeper role? Perhaps, but it could also mean Arsenal are going to try evolve into a more fluid side in midfield.
Former Premier League midfielder Dietmar Hamann insinuated that in analysis this week, per Goal, saying: “They’ve got some very good players in there with Declan Rice and a couple of others, but he’ll (Guimares) find his place.
“But I think what they want from him is getting a bit more adventurous from midfield.
“I think he can bring that for them, but to call him top class, I think, is a bit premature. He’s a very good player. To show he’s top class, I think he’s got to prove it now at Arsenal.”
Either way, he is a player who covers a lot of territory and will put himself in a position to pick up a lot of points.
The thing you’ll need to decide is whether you invest one of your big spending positions on him.