Eddie Howe and his Newcastle squad have got just three weeks to fine tune everything before the Premier League kicks off again in earnest.
No sooner will the Magpies undertake their domestic commitments than the group stages of the Champions League will come around, so the sooner that the north east giants conclude their summer transfer business the better.
Leicester City’s Harvey Barnes should be done and dusted in the not too distant future and though talkSPORT’s Alex Crook has tweeted that Southampton don’t want to sell Tino Livramento to the club, Sky Sports’ Pete Graves has a different viewpoint.
Livramento to #NUFC is not close. #SaintsFC do not want to sell and the two clubs are a long way apart in their valuations.
— Alex Crook ??? (@alex_crook) July 22, 2023
Not only does he believe Livramento will eventually sign, but it won’t be the last bit of business Newcastle do.
“They’re still in the market for more. Livramento will come in. He’s someone Eddie Howe sees as a right-back, if something happened to Kieran Trippier, and he can also play at left-back as well. He’s very versatile,” he said on the Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk podcast.
“I don’t think Newcastle are finished there. They are discussing potential loan-to-buy moves as well, as a way they can get around financial fair play.
“So, I do think, after Harvey Barnes, there’ll be definitely one, but potentially two or three more arrivals for the first-team at Newcastle.”
Whether Graves is just talking up the merits of the Magpies or he has genuine knowledge of the club’s transfer plans is unclear.
However, there are cogent reasons why players would be interested in playing their football at St. James’ Park in the future, whereas in the past they may have been a little more reticent.
Given how close we are now to the kick of the 2023/24 campaign, it’s imperative that the recruitment department at Newcastle position themselves well enough to ensure that the players that they want are the players that arrive.
If Howe is able to acquire all of his targets, it’s safe to say that the Magpies might take some stopping next season.