Alan Shearer, who was a special guest on the latest episode of Pod on the Tyne, has revealed how close Newcastle United were to signing Jarrod Bowen before his move to the Premier League.
The Magpies were said to hold a very strong interest in Bowen during his time in the Championship with Hull City and were going head to head with West Ham United to secure the winger’s signature.
Would Bowen start for Newcastle?
Yes!
No!
Newcastle ended up missing out on Bowen, which at the time may not have been too big of a deal considering he’d never played higher than England’s second tier, but after receiving an England call-up yesterday, their failure to sign him certainly seems like a missed opportunity.
Shearer has now revealed that former manager Steve Bruce had the signing all but sorted, only for it to not be signed off and go through.
He said: “There’s a player in the England squad who’s been announced today, Jarrod Bowen – Steve had him. Steve had him ready to come to Newcastle and they didn’t do the deal, so that’s what obviously people don’t see or know what’s going on behind the scenes.”
TIF Thoughts on Newcastle missing out on Bowen…
During the winger’s final season and a half with the Tigers, he managed to record 48 goal involvements, so no surprise there was interest in him from Premier League clubs and that Manager of the Year Jurgen Klopp has recently labelled him as ‘unbelievable‘.
While not many fans on Tyneside liked Steve Bruce, for him to have got a deal sorted with his former club Hull City for a player like Bowen, only for it to not get done and finalised between Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley, really does go to show the losing battle he was fighting at the club.
In other news: Shocking: Sky Sports man predicts potential major Newcastle decision