Newsletter

Get your daily update and weekly newsletter by signing up today!

Transfer News

Steve Bruce looking to spend most of his £30m budget on these 2 Premier League players – Report

4 years ago
Share

A new ‘exclusive’ on Tuesday afternoon has named the top two targets Steve Bruce is allegedly targeting in this transfer window.

Close to the NUFC Head Coach, the Telegraph’s Luke Edwards says that his good mate has £30m to spend in this summer window and it will take most/all of that cash to land these two players.

The two players named are both with relegated Bournemouth, striker Josh King and midfielder David Brooks.

Edwards says that Josh King is set to leave this summer and that the 28 year old striker is set to decide his future when returning from holiday.

His transfer fee would likely be somewhere approaching £20m and Edwards says this might prove a bit too rich for Steve Bruce, with the player having scored just ’48 goals in 161 league games’.

However, you pay for what you get and when you drill down into the figures a bit more it is 48 goals in 140 PL starts (plus 21 sub appearances) for Bournemouth and averaging a goal every 295 minutes, so just a little more than one every three games worth on average.

In his five seasons, the Premier League goals totals for King have been 6, 16, 8, 12 and 6, so even in his worst years he would have still been this season’s top (joint) scorer for Newcastle, playing for a struggling Bournemouth who went down. Plus with injury problems this season he only started 24 PL games.

Luke Edwards says that the interest in David Brooks is ‘arguably more risky’ and Steve Bruce ‘could well decide to take a chance on him if Bournemouth are willing to sell for around the same fee (£11.5m) they bought him for in 2018’, from Sheffield United.

To be honest, I don’t think there is any chance of getting Brooks for anything like that fee, he scored seven PL goals and got five assists in 29 league starts in 2018/19.

Still only 23, the winger / attacking midfielder missed the entire ‘normal’ 2019/20 season with a bad injury, making his eight PL appearances after restart in June and July. He only scored one goal but came into a team that was badly struggling and on its way down, from the games I saw he looked Bournemouth’s best player and would be a great signing if Newcastle could get him.

Though I reckon for a young player who is only 23 and was directly involved in 12 goals from 29 PL starts in 2018/19, you would be looking for bidding to start at £20m and if NUFC could get him for that figure, he would be a relative bargain in today’s transfer market.

Time is of the essence though and with a squad desperately needing strengthening, especially up front after Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce wasted £40m+ on Joelinton, we need players arriving ASAP with less than two weeks until pre-season preparations begin for the squad and just over five weeks until the 2020/21 season kicks off.

Share

If you would like to feature on The Mag, submit your article to contribute@themag.co.uk

Have your say

© 2024 The Mag. All Rights Reserved. Design & Build by Mediaworks