Newcastle United have been linked with left-back Raphael Guerreiro, the 21 year-old Portugal International who plays for Lorient in France, after he joined them two years ago from Caen.
With Newcastle also linked with Leeds United full-back Sam Byram today, it does look like the defender Newcastle want to bring in this month is a full-back.
Raphael Guerreiro – 21 year-old Lorient left-back
We don’t think the club will bring in another top center-back, with Coloccini now signed up for a couple of years, and the top choice central defense partnership will be Coloccini and new signing Chancel Mbemba, and for their first outing together they did well on Sunday afternoon against Southampton.
It also looks like Steve McClaren wants to bring in a young player with both Sam and Raphael being only 21.
Lorient President Loic Fery wants a big fee for his 5ft 7ins tall left-back, and he has said this to L’Equipe:
“I do not understand why Raphael would supposedly be worth €12m, when I hear that and Lucas Digne and Layvin Kurzawa are worth €25M today” “Nobody is non-transferable, but it must be for the right price.”
In other words what Fery is saying is that he is willing to sell at the right price – a high price of €12M which is around £8.5M – but that’s certainly affordable to Newcastle if they think Guerreiro is worth that much.
Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain are two other clubs also said to be interested in the player.
Guerreiro would probably start at left back if he is signed and only Janmaat and the experienced Coloccini would keep their places from last season’s defense, which leaked far too many goals and is still our weakness today.
Raphael was born in France to a Portuguese father and a French mother, and he has elected to play International football for Portugal – even though he doesn’t speak much Portuguese.
He made his International debut last November in the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier against Armenia.
He’s the type of player Newcastle like to sign – somebody who is young and who can still improve as he gets games in the Premier League.
If Raphael does come to Tyneside he will challenge Massadio Haidara and Paul Dummett for the left back spot, and he could be thought of as a replacement for Davide Santon.
We have no idea why Newcastle sold Santon in late January, since he never wanted to leave Newcastle, but we’ll put it down to collateral damage caused by the short but very disastrous reign of John Carver at the club.
It does look like Steve McClaren wants to bring a full back in before September 1st.
Comments welcome.
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13 comments so far
JDdubai
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:03 PM
Comment #1WHERE IS SHAQIRI FFS!!!!!!!!!!
jayphoto
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:10 PM
Comment #2@Ibiza – there was definitely more emphasis on not wasting the ball! Only Krul punted aimlessly.
Anita was coming back very deep to retrieve the ball and a lot seem to go through him in almost a xavi hernandez style. We lost a lot of shape when he went off injured.
Wijnaldum playing the #10 role got into the box far more than sissoko used to played same role (see our second goal) and in general played closer to cisse as a link up.
Pressing was better than under carver and pardew too!
Looked like the players had a lot of changes put on them and they’ve not fully come to terms with all of them yet. Reckon it’ll take 3 months before we see a true change of style but the beginnings were definitely there. To me it looks like McClaren is going to play in the style he did with Derby! Which for 75% of last season till injury hit were the best team to watch in the football league. For me it wasn’t a perfect start, theres a lot to work on, but it was definitely encouraging and an indication that the staff are working with an actual philosophy and purpose and idea.
Graeme
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:10 PM
Comment #3House hunting in Syoke??
Graeme
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:11 PM
Comment #4or Stoke even!!
Lee Charnley Bunga Party
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:11 PM
Comment #5We need some height in our defence though not sure this lad would provide it?
Kind of hoping we are still looking to sign Lewis Dunk and are just waiting till Williamson is sold before we get him
BeeGuy
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:12 PM
Comment #6Defender and winger now, and then spend the rest of the window trying to flog off the dross.
croftus5678
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:22 PM
Comment #7we should go for jethro imo he wants to actually come to us and be with wijnaldum and has the class to push our team into the top half or even top 6 with another cb.
seanp
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:25 PM
Comment #8Can’t understand why so many want to see us sell off many of our squad players. Seen loads of comments about the need to sell Colo, Cisse, Tiote, Marv, Saylor etc. Why? For years we’ve complained that we lack strength in depth – we now can have that strength, look at the bench we had on Sunday. Yes it would cut the wage bill but we don’t exactly pay stellar wages. For years the likes of Tiote, Sissoko and Colo have walked back into the team due to lack of competition – let’s keep that competition by having strength in depth.
WWSBRD
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:28 PM
Comment #9croftus
Well it worked well when we got Debuchy because he wanted to follow Cabaye that lasts and built success for us
Lee Charnley Bunga Party
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:30 PM
Comment #10@seanp
Think its more people want them sold but upgraded by better players coming into replace them !Examples:
Would sell Tiote in a heartbeat if we could get a better midfielder he was terrible when he came on
Marveux has done nothing recently would be better with a winger who can play as he is injured again!
Saylor is always injured could certainly upgrade him
If we done the 3 of them for starters we would have a much better squad
Toon-Prodigy
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:41 PM
Comment #11Shaqiri has now passed his medical at Stoke. Very much doubt he is coming here.
seanp
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:42 PM
Comment #12@Lee Charnley BP
Yes, sell IF they are upgraded! However many of the comments have suggested that now we have Mbemba, Wijnaldum and Mitrovic we can dispense with Colo, Tiote and Cisse – this would still leave us lacking squad depth. If more and better players come in then fine – just not convinced that there will be more coming in.
croftus5678
Aug 11, 2015 at 4:05 PM
Comment #13@9 wwsbrd
your correct it did work !
we got a massively improved wing back for the time he was here from what we had previously and got a huge profit on him in the short time he was in which we improved even further in signing janmaat !
same goes for cabaye which for the money we recieved for him we have got better in for less money !
if we was given that option again i would gladly take it even if it was for only a season or so ! a better quality player for one season is better than an avg player for several.