I'd also be interested in lurking around Vitor Roque at Barcelona as it seems like he is very unsettled at the moment after coming over early in January 2024 and not getting many minutes. Supposedly, Xavi has frozen him out and doesn't even talk to him. He looks very promising and if we are sold on Havertz as the CF for next year, I'd love to have a younger, high-potential CF backing him up and getting some good experience. Could be worth a look and he has the same agent as Estevao, who looks to be the real deal.

QuincyAbeyie Yep this is what I saw earlier. Clearly just a reaction to the abuse he's gotten on social media (which is always absolutely absurd behavior by fans). But if it were to somehow amount to him leaving this summer, I would certainly be interested. He's a lousy finisher but creates SO much chaos and chances out of nowhere. He's an A+ athlete for a striker and I do think there will be a little positive regression on his goals due to the ridiculous amount of posts he's hit this year but he will always underperform his xG over his career bar some purple patches. I still love how he plays and he was one of the players I was most concerned with all year because he's harassed Gabriel and Saliba in the past with his combination of strength, speed and work rate.

      I think my houseboat striker rankings for this summer would be:

      1. Isak
      2. Nunez
      3. Zirkzee
      4. (not linked but...) Vitor Roque
      5. Sesko
      6. Gyokeres

      Sounds like that TeamNewsAndTix guy posted our supposed midfield targets and they are Bruno Guimaraes, Amadou Onana and Joao Neves. I think we should take it all with a grain of salt since its hard to believe he's both this well connected and that the higher-ups would be okay at all with these leaks, especially since he's making some money off them with his Patreon. However, it's the first time I've seen a link of us to Neves. He's really intriguing although I am not sure if he would be ready to really move the needle for us next year in a title push due to his age and inexperience outside of Portugal. He certainly looks like he could be a big star sooner than later though and it's not hard to imagine him having an impressive Euros that puts his value even above Enzo territory. I'm surprised there's no mention of Zubimendi though...

        samthegooner the guys just repeating rumours, no one new in any of his lists. Its all speculation. Fair play if he can monetise morons with it but I've never seen anything to make me think he's got insider info on transfers.

            Claudius Have we? I've seen Joao Gomes links from Wolves but haven't seen anything with Neves.

            Qwiss Completely agree - once he started doing this Patreon he lost a lot of credibility with me but still wanted to pass along from what I saw being posted from it.

                samthegooner alot of talks over twitter from quite a few prominent ITKs claiming Bruno is the one we are hell bent on getting and negotiations is well underway but we won't pay the 100m release clause.

                    Clrnc the argument is that it’s a one horse race, so Newcastle will eventually given in for less.
                    It’s great to be THE team. Gone are the days of scrapping for Sokratis and Kolasinac.

                      Clrnc I still feel like we should be aiming for someone who is going to move the needle for us in the league and in CL. Bruno still strikes me as someone who isn't technical enough to push us up a level in CL but I do think he will make us better in the league. A Rice-Guimaraes pivot is definitely formidable and we would not be fun to play against at all, so I also wonder how much my own personal bias against him from the last two years of seeing him at Newcastle is overshadowing my feelings about signing him... The fact that City are also in for him makes me think my own personal biases are clouding my judgment.

                          Bruno is extremely technical. One of the best through ball passers in the world.

                          Just look at how freaking good he is. He’s basically a fired up, hungry to win defensively able Enzo Fernandez

                            Bruno would be great, I would just want us to add more of a traditional pivot to the squad as well, someone like Zubimendi, if Partey is going to leave. Ideally, to compete on both fronts, we have four top midfielders, any trio of which could play well together, making us adaptable to injuries and different situations.

                            Rice-Bruno-Ødegaard, Zubimendi-Rice-Ødegaard, Zubimendi-Bruno-Ødegaard, Zubimendi-Rice-Bruno – all viable units.

                            But don't think that's realistic if we're buying a defender in addition to a forward.

                              samthegooner At least that team news and ticks guy also says that Arteta loves De Jong (although he just seems to mention every good CM so that he can't be wrong).