ITKs have pounced on a name linked with Newcastle back in June - a closer look has us interested

Newcastle United has its fair share of social media ITKs, each one more outlandish than the next, but by the very nature of what they do, they sometimes hit the target.

As the old adage goes, throw enough poop and eventually something will stick then it's time to wheel out the eye emojis.

Last night on X an ITK battle broke out over who mentioned the latest name first - even though reports on Newcastle's interest in the player had been around over two months ago.

That player is Mainz winger Brajan Gruda. The 20-year-old's name was suddenly the hot topic of discussion last night.

Newcastle have been linked to the German winger for a while

Back in June it was reported that Mainz were going to slap a £42 million asking price on the winger to try to dissuade any suitors. Since then the narrative changed to "things could move quickly" and then to Aston Villa leading the way.

Gruda is still at Mainz and while the media isn't pushing the NUFC narrative just yet, the Newcastle ITKs are adamant that the club are interested.

So as it's still eerily quiet in the world of NUFC other than the Marc Guehi and Anthony Gordon bits, we thought we'd have a quick look at Gruda ... and now we want him.

Brajan Gruda is very similar to Lamine

We found a comparison between Gruda and Barcelona and Spain sensation Lamine Yamal, and Gruda out-performed Yamal in every metric. However, it is worth noting that Yamal played considerably more minutes than Gruda which would have caused his stats to level out.

Granted Lamal is just 16 and by the time he is 20, his stats will be frightening, but for right now, Gruda doesn't look like a bad second option.

Whether Newcastle have any genuine interest in Gruda is an entirely different story, but if this is one of those cases of the ITKs being right, we'll certainly not be upset.