Journalist Darren Lewis admits he wouldn’t be surprised if Newcastle United are already planning to bring in players of a higher quality to play alongside the likes of Bruno Guimaraes.
Following PIF’s takeover of Newcastle, many may have expected the new owners to splash the cash and bring in star names to make a statement of intent, with the likes of Gareth Bale and Neymar being linked over the past 12 months.
Someone who’s already become a star is Guimaraes, who netted two against Brentford last weekend and was labelled ‘pivotal’ and ‘really talented’ by Alan Shearer.
Lewis believes more players of his quality could soon arrive at St James’ Park, claiming on the TalkSport GameDay podcast that PIF could already be planning on signing higher-calibre players to help Guimaraes thrive even more.
He said: “It wouldn’t surprise me if, already, Newcastle are looking at higher-calibre players to play in front of [Guimaraes] and around him, because this is a guy who you build your team around.
“I’m going to contradict myself slightly here, because I like the way they’ve built the team anyway – I like the fact that they’ve built from the back; that was where they started, the likes of Botman and Trippier and the left-back, Targett, and Pope they brought in as well.
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“They really wanted to build on stable foundations, and I think that’s a big part of giving Guimaraes the platform to express himself, [he’s] a really good player.”
TIF Thoughts on Guimaraes’ impact on Tyneside…
It’s obvious to see why Guimaraes is a huge success at Newcastle both on and off the pitch, with the Brazilian having already scored more goals for them than he did in his entire Lyon career. Elsewhere, he’s second for shot-creating actions despite missing three games, while in his interviews, he’s saying all the right things in terms of loving his time at the club.
Guimaraes has recently claimed that he did indeed hold talks with Real Madrid over the summer – something backed up by Fabrizio Romano – but the midfielder decided to stay and is now looking like one of the best players in this Newcastle side.
We believe PIF and Newcastle must now recognise the talent they have on their hands and reward him with players of that same quality around him which will show their progression and ambition, otherwise, he will likely start thinking about furthering his career elsewhere.