Picking off exciting, young English talent is the name of the game for Newcastle United since the takeover happened. Whether under the guidance of Dan Ashworth or Paul Mitchell, finding exciting young players has remained a cornerstone of the recruitment plans a the club.
The policy hasn't always yielded positive results. As you'd expect, clubs are often quite keen to keep hold of their young talent in a bid to nurture them into first-team players for themselves.
You only need to look at the fee Newcastle paid for Lewis Hall to see how tricky a market it can be to navigate.
However, Manchester City have form for letting their young players leave only for them to become huge stars elsewhere.
Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Liam Delap are all having the time of their lives since leaving Man City, and now Newcastle United are hoping they can pluck a future star from their crop of youngsters by eyeing 22-year-old James McAtee.
The attacking midfielder has made just nine first-team appearances for Manchester City this season but has managed a Champions League goal in the game against Slovan Bratislava.
Despite having only made a handful of first-team outings, Newcastle have reportedly seen enough to know he would fit their style of play, but there's a problem, beyond the obvious PSR issue.
Pep Guardiola has big plans for McAtee as The Chronicle has reported. The Man City boss has seen many of his youngsters go on to big things and Pep seems to want to keep McAtee for himself.
"He’s a player, in a generation we have at City that has been unbelievable when you see Romeo Lavia, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Macca, Liam Delap, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, they’re incredible players come from there and he was part of that generation, he captained them.
“But I always felt this guy could play with us, and I’m very pleased for him because he’s an incredibly lovely guy, trains really good and he wants these minutes."
If Newcastle do make an approach for McAtee the first thing they need to make absolutely clear is that they are only there to talk about McAtee and Bruno Guimaraes doesn't even come up in conversation.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
20 | 28 | 47 |
2 |
Nottingham Forest
|
21 | 10 | 41 |
3 |
Arsenal
|
20 | 21 | 40 |
4 |
Chelsea
|
21 | 15 | 37 |
5 |
Newcastle United
|
20 | 12 | 35 |
6 |
Manchester City
|
21 | 9 | 35 |
7 |
Bournemouth
|
21 | 7 | 34 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
20 | -2 | 32 |
9 |
Fulham
|
21 | 2 | 30 |
10 |
Brentford
|
21 | 3 | 28 |
11 |
Brighton
|
20 | 1 | 28 |
12 |
West Ham United
|
21 | -14 | 26 |
13 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
20 | 12 | 24 |
14 |
Manchester United
|
20 | -5 | 23 |
15 |
Crystal Palace
|
20 | -7 | 21 |
16 |
Everton
|
19 | -10 | 17 |
17 |
Wolves
|
20 | -14 | 16 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
20 | -15 | 16 |
19 |
Leicester
|
20 | -21 | 14 |
20 |
Southampton
|
20 | -32 | 6 |