Newcastle United will be busy in the summer transfer window, with fans and journalists alike expecting a big rebuild ahead of next season.
It’s clear that mistakes were made last year, and even Eddie Howe has acknowledged that the summer was the most difficult transfer window he’s ever had.
We don’t expect that Newcastle will throw last year’s signings on the heap, as they all have the potential to become successful; it just hasn’t worked out for most of them this season.
However, we do expect to see some overlap when it comes to new signings this summer, with players arriving in the same positions that were recruited for last year, as the latest link suggests.
Newcastle forked out £55 million on Anthony Elanga for the right side of their attack, but already there’s strong talk coming from Brazil that Newcastle are ‘leading the race’ to sign 21-year-old Brazilian winger Allan Elias, who plays in the same position as the Swedish international.
Brazilian outlet Espírito de Porco claims that Newcastle lead the way in the race for the Palmeiras star and are preparing a £39.5 million package to tempt the Brazilian side into allowing him to make the switch.
Head of recruitment Steve Nickson is no stranger to scouting trips over in South America, which is a part of the world we’re clearly targeting as we close in on the signing of Ecuadorian talent Johan Martinez.
Palmeiras have become a bit of a force in Brazil of late, and Allan has been a big part of that success. Tempting him away could be tricky, and it seems Newcastle are aware of this, which may explain why we are wasting no time in our pursuit.
The Magpies have been consistently linked with Allan since the end of last year, and it sounds as though we’ve sent representatives to watch him on more than one occasion.
Our concern is that we do our usual ‘wait and see’ approach, and we wait just that little bit too long, and another club comes along and snatches him up from under our noses, which happened far too often last summer.
We may be in pole position now, but we know what Newcastle are like from winning positions, don’t we?