Newcastle scouts were in Turkey yesterday to have another look at player Paul Mitchell scouted last week

Newcastle United are dangerously close to starting the 2024/25 Premier League season with Miguel Almiron and Jacob Murphy as their right-wing options.

While Murphy has been carving teams up in pre-season, his performance in the 2-0 defeat to Yokohama did give us the reality check we needed - he's definitely better than Miguel Almiron, but he's still not the right man to get us to the top 4.

Miguel Almiron meanwhile, was in action yesterday at St James' Park and if nobody put their arm around him at full-time and walked him off the pitch, he'd still be there now running around in circles.

All the attention in the transfer market is still on the protracted negotiations for Crystal Palace and England defender Marc Guehi, but it seems that our recruitment team hasn't forgotten about the winger problem.

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Newcastle are keen on Baris Alper Yilmaz of Galatasaray

Last week it was reported that Paul Mitchell was in Turkey to watch Baris Alper Yilmaz in action for himself. No bid has been made as yet, but Newcastle had scouts in the stands yesterday to watch the 24-year-old in competitive action.

Turkish outlet ABC Gazetesi believes that Newcastle were joined by Aston Villa's scouts to watch the Turkish international help Galatasaray to a 2-1 win over Hatayspor in the Turkis Super Lig.

Yilmaz played the entire game on the left wing for Galatasaray, but the right-footer does prefer to play on the right wing.

It's time for Newcastle to make their move

HITC covered the story and also added that Aston Villa have made an offer for Turkish wonderkid Semih Kilicsoy who was also linked with Newcastle at the start of the transfer window.

With under three weeks left in the transfer window and less than a week until the Premier League season gets back underway, we're hoping that, if Newcastle are keen on Yilmaz that they make a move quickly so we can crack on with storming the Premier League (and selling players we don't need).

It's time to get a move on, Mr Mitchell.