Newcastle United are in the hunt to sign Benfica right-back Andre Almeida, according to Record.
The Portuguese newspaper claims that Leicester and Brighton are also interested in signing Almeida, 28, this summer after an impressive season with Liga NOS champions Benfica.
The Express has previously reported that West Ham, Everton and Wolves are also eyeing up the Portugal international, who is valued at £8million by the Lisbon giants.
Good move for Newcastle?
Whoever is in charge of Newcastle next season will have to look at strengthening the squad in a lot of positions in the summer transfer window, and right-back is one position that could do with a revamp.
DeAndre Yedlin and Javier Manquillo are two right-backs that aren’t good enough to be starting options for a team like Newcastle, so it would be a good idea to sign an upgrade, make one of them the back-up and sell the other.
Almeida would definitely be an upgrade on both of them.
The 28-year-old, who has eight caps for Portugal, scored two goals and supplied 12 assists in 53 appearances across all competitions for Benfica last season and that £8million valuation seems quite fair.
This is Futbol rating 7/10
Likely to happen?
Almeida is coveted by a lot of clubs in the Premier League and out of all of them, Newcastle are probably in the weakest position.
Rafa Benitez’s future isn’t sorted yet and Mike Ashley could even be selling the club.
It’s hard to see the Magpies winning the race to sign any player until those issues are resolved.
This is Futbol rating 1/10