Report now links Newcastle United with 25-year-old Portuguese defender from Juventus

The links to central defenders keep coming thick and fast for Newcastle United, as it is widely known that Eddie Howe is desperate for a new centre back.

As we've said many times, it feels as though Marc Guehi is still Eddie Howe's first choice to be the long-term partner for Sven Botman at the back, but after having their fingers burnt last year by a shady Steve Parish, Newcastle know better than to not have a solid plan B in place.

Indeed, it's not just a plan B that Newcastle are going with; they seem to have most of the alphabet covered, and more names are being added to the list daily.

Not every link will have grains of truth, and this latest one has that whiff of agent deception about it.

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Newcastle want to beat Crystal Palace to signing of Tiago Djalo

A report by TuttoJuve in Italy has suggested that Crystal Palace and Newcastle United are looking at Juventus' Portuguese defender Tiago Djalo.

The 25-year-old moved to Juve from Lille in January last year and then spent last season out on loan at Porto after failing to settle in at the Turin side.

That doesn't sound overly appealing for Newcastle on the face of it, and is one of the reasons that we aren't convinced by this story.

We aren't convinced by the link

The fact that the source is TuttoJuve is also a red flag. They're specifically a Juventus outlet and are a mouthpiece for the club, so they will often be used to drum up interest in players no longer wanted by the club.

The Crystal Palace link may be true, and then they've thrown Newcastle's name into the mix to zhuzh the story up a bit and add a level of urgency.

Of course, there's still a chance that it's entirely accurate. Newcastle have been boasting about how their foreign targets have remained secret, so perhaps this is one that has leaked.

Transfer season. It's a crazy time to be a fan, and it's even crazier when you write about this mental club for a living.