Eddie Howe has not given up hope of landing 21-year-old England player this summer - Journalist

 · July 7 2024, 10:00
Eddie Howe has not given up hope of landing 21-year-old England player this summer - Journalist
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As things stand, Newcastle United have five first-team goalkeepers on the books after bringing in John Ruddy and Odysseas Vlachodimos already this window.

Martin Dubravka is very likely to leave this summer with Celtic his most likely destination, and that takes us back down to four 'keepers with Nick Pope being first choice and Mark Gillespie essentially a sentient training dummy.

When Newcastle brought in Ruddy and Vlachodimos it seemed like their incoming business was done for the goalkeeping department.

It was underwhelming, to say the least, and now Newcastle fans face the prospect of having a goalkeeper who was so bad Nottingham Forest replaced him with Matz Sels deputising if anything goes wrong with Nick Pope.

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Eddie Howe still wants James Trafford

`Alan Nixon believes Newcastle aren't done with James Trafford

But that may not be the case as The Sun's Alan Nixon has taken to his Patreon blog (h/t Football League World) to suggest that Newcastle may not be done with Burnley's James Trafford.

The 21-year-old England goalkeeper looked set to move to Tyneside once the two clubs agreed a fee, but the signings of Ruddy and Vlachodimos seemed to put an end to that speculation.

Newcastle already had a £16million bid rejected for Trafford with Burnley wanting almost twice that amount. Now it's believed Eddie Howe has requested that we go back with another bid closer to Burnley's £30million valuation.

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Can somebody please make sense of this for us?

If this is true, then it brings up one pretty important question: What the hell is going on at our club?

Fans were baffled enough by the two goalkeeping arrivals but now it seems that potentially neither of them had anything to do with Howe who clearly still wants James Trafford to be back up for Nick Pope.

If this comes off, what happens to the three 'keepers below Traffford? In John Ruddy's interview it seemed he knew his role was akin to a sentient training dummy like Gillespie, but why do we need two? And if Vlachodimos wasn't brought in to be number two, then why bring him in at all?

I guess only time will tell, but right now, my head is battered.

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