It has been a summer of change at St James’ Park as the Newcastle United board moved long standing manager Eddie Howe on and replaced him with young, but very promising German gaffer, 38 year old Matthias Jaissle – there have also been big changes on the playing staff front.
With the summer World Cup out in the United States of America, Canada and Mexico taking the attentions of most football fans, Geordies saw Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes move on for around the combined £237 million mark, but the arrivals of Bazoumana Toure, Sean Steur, Aladji Bamba, Lukas Hornicek and Amar Dedic somewhat softened the blow, however, we are yet to see how quickly they will adjust to our domestic Premier League level and settle in.
With around a £150 million spent so far this summer, for those who like a flutter with Irish betting sites they will know that clearly we are not yet finished with our business given there is a week and a bit to go in terms of Deadline Day arriving and slamming shut. Therefore it is no surprise to see that it is now being claimed that we are seriously interested in bringing in midfielder Nico Gonzalez from Manchester City.
The 24 year old former Barcelona youth Academy graduate made the move to the Etihad Stadium from Porto back on Deadline Day of the January 2025 window, but the eleven capped Spanish Under 21 international has largely struggled for proper game time since under former manager Pep Guardiola.
Despite splashing out £50 million for his services, he has only made 40 starting appearances for them across all competitions since, but the player did go on record earlier this summer as stating that his lack of more regular match minutes had not been a problem in his eyes, and he was happy to stay at the club playing his part, confident more regular game time would come in the future.
It is being reported that talks are only at a preliminary stage despite us now being in the second half of the month of August, and that he is simply just one player of many that ‘exploratory’ talks are talking place over, and obviously having lost the players that we have, a midfielder with relatively good Premier League experience is obviously a bonus for us right now.
He would be an interesting prospect for us right now, he is very much of the age now where far more regular first team football would only suit what has to be his purpose and aim of attempting to break into the full Spanish squad, but with a change of manager and the arrival of Enzo Maresca, added to the departure of Rodri – who he was originally signed to cover whilst the Spanish captain was originally out with an Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury – will have magnified his thoughts of finally establishing himself in the blue of Manchester.
However, in their recent (and very poor) defeat to Arsenal in last Sunday’s Community Shield, he was only brought on for the final eleven minutes of the game by the former Chelsea boss and that may well have given him an answer on that front that has now changed his mind on being so willing to stay and continue to fight it out.
This is definitely a piece of Newcastle speculation on the rumour mill that is worth watching over the next week.
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