After failing to bring in a right-sided centre-back to compete with and ultimately take over from Fabian Schar this summer, Newcastle United remain on the lookout for someone to come in and fill that position.
Depending on where you get your information, Newcastle either will or will not revisit a deal for Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi in January after being strung along all summer only for the London club to refuse the sale in the end.
Guehi has looked like a shadow of his former self this season so far, although the England centre-back put in a strong performance for the Three Lions against Finland on Sunday.
Now that Paul Mitchell has got his feet under the table at Newcastle, it's expected that a wider net will be cast in the hunt for a centre-back and Caught Offside are reporting that the Magpies have their eye on two defenders already playing in the Premier League.
The claim is that Newcastle are keen on Leicester City's Wout Faes and Nottingham Forest's Nikola Milenkovic.
Wout Faes is one of the worst defenders I have ever seen play in the Premier League and the thought of signing him terrifies me. However, I will concede that I have only watched him play a handful of times, however, every time I've watched him he has been woeful.
Clearly our scouts know a lot more than I do, but if Wout Faes is the answer, I'm not even sure what the question is. The 26-year-old is a Belgium international, so surely he's not as bad in reality as he is in my mind, but this one is not inspiring me at all, especially not at £33 million.
Meanwhile Nikola Milenkovic has just moved to Nottingham Forest this summer and already looks like a good signing. He's played six Premier League games and already has an assist to his name playing in central defence.
Early indications suggest the 27-year-old Serbian definitely has a shade of the Fabian Schars about him, however it's early days yet.
The fact that he's just moved to Forest makes this one a lot more tricky than Faes who was already considering his future at Leicester in the summer but if these are the choices I'll take the unknown entity of Milenkovic over Faes please, although it's expected that Forest would slap a £42 million price tag on Milenkovic.
I'm open to changing my mind if someone wants to convince me I'm wrong about Poundland David Luiz. Of course, Eddie Howe made a baller out of Joelinton, so anything is possible.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
12 | 16 | 31 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
12 | 5 | 23 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
5 |
Brighton
|
12 | 5 | 22 |
6 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
12 | 14 | 19 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
12 | 2 | 19 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
12 | 0 | 19 |
9 |
Fulham
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
11 |
Brentford
|
12 | 0 | 17 |
12 |
Manchester United
|
12 | 0 | 16 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
12 | -1 | 15 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
12 | -4 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
12 | -7 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
12 | -8 | 10 |
17 |
Wolves
|
12 | -8 | 9 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
12 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Crystal Palace
|
12 | -7 | 8 |
20 |
Southampton
|
12 | -15 | 4 |