Huge signing on fee speculated as details emerge regarding £100k-a-week Newcastle signing

Thursday morning brought confirmation that Newcastle United have completed the signing of 25-year-old defender Lloyd Kelly.

The former Bournemouth man is out of contract and has joined Newcastle to once again link up with Eddie Howe.

Fabrizio Romano posted this morning that the deal was 100% complete after it was reported that Kelly was on Tyneside for his medical yesterday.

We're still awaiting official confirmation from the club, but given that Kelly's Bournemouth contract runs until the end of this month, we won't expect much fanfare until 1st July.

Lloyd Kelly has tripled his wages by signing for Newcastle

Now Football Insider are claiming that Kelly has signed up on a £100,000-a-week deal, which is three times what he was on at Bournemouth.

They also say that there is a 'huge' signing-on fee involved, which is often the case when it comes to free transfers, but there's no mention of an actual amount.

Kelly becomes Newcastle's first signing of the summer that wasn't pre-arranged after Lewis Hall's season-long-loan was turned into a permanent deal.

Eddie Howe is giving himself some options in defence

Hall and Kelly could find themselves battling it out for the left-back position next season as Kelly as adept at full-back as well as central defence, but with Sven Botman out until the new year, Kelly could be seen as his replacement for the first half of the season, although we're sure Dan Burn will have something to say about that.

We expect that Eddie Howe will still bring in another centre-back this summer, someone who can adequately cover Fabian Schar with a view to succeeding the Swiss defender in the future.

It's weird seeing Newcastle being proactive in the transfer market. We're used to getting to deadline day and wondering if anything is going to happen, now we're getting stuff done before the window even opens.