It has been making headlines the last couple of weeks, Bruno Guimaraes set to move from Newcastle United to Arsenal.
However, any chance of this happening now looks slim to impossible.
Turns out the whole media celebration of Newcastle United losing their best player has been built on a false premise.
The farcical situation now revealed in an exclusive from The Telegraph.
They report that: ‘Arsenal became interested in signing Newcastle’s captain only when they were told, via intermediaries, he could be prised away from their Premier League rivals for a bargain price. That is not the case and the deal remains deadlocked…they were initially led to believe he could move for only £50m.’
The report going on to say: ‘Arsenal always knew Newcastle wanted to keep Guimaraes and appreciated how crucial he was to manager Eddie Howe, but they were encouraged to pursue the player as they were informed it would take a bid of about £50m to open the door to talks.’
This whole thing never made sense.
Yes, I could believe Arsenal would want to sign Bruno Guimaraes.
Yes, I could believe Bruno Guimaraes might be interested in doubling his wages and joining a club that had just won the Premier League and got to the Champions League final.
Yes, especially in light of the fact Newcastle United had already agreed to sell both Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali in this summer 2026 transfer window.
But…
I was bewildered by the fact that most of the media blindly reported/repeated that Arsenal were set to sign Bruno Guimaraes for a figure of potentially as low as £50m and definitely not more than £60m.
How did any of this make any sense.
Having already sold two of their key players, why on earth would Newcastle United be willing to sell their best player and captain for a figure of £60m or less?
Why would they be willing to sell Bruno Guimaraes for around half of what Tottenham paid for Sandro Tonali? Far less than the £70m they sold Anthony Gordon to Barcelona for.
Why would Newcastle be willing to sell Bruno Guimaraes for less than half of what Manchester City are paying for Elliot Anderson?
Bruno Guimaraes is better than both of these now former Newcastle United midfielders. He is two years older than Tonali and five years older than Anderson, but Bruno G is in his prime and playing better than he has ever done before for both Brazil and Newcastle United. He really looks after himself, is super fit, he is worth £100m of anybody’s money IF Newcastle United were willing to sell. This 2026 World Cup we have seen the likes of Messi and Modric in their late 30s still excelling, Bruno Guimaraes has never relied on pace and so why shouldn’t he have many years left at the top still to go?
So why did Arsenal have this crazy idea that Newcastle United would be willing to sell their best player and captain for £50m or so?
The Telegraph explaining: ‘That view appears to have been based on a conversation Guimaraes’ representatives claim to have had with Amanda Staveley, Newcastle’s former co-owner, who said they would be willing to listen to offers of that size if they failed to qualify for the Champions League. However, that was never guaranteed and Staveley is no longer at St James’ Park. There is no release clause in Guimaraes’ contract, which has two years left to run with a club-held option of another year. That effectively ties Guimaraes to Newcastle until 2030. Furthermore, Staveley categorically denied the conversation took place when approached by Telegraph Sport.’
The fact Newcastle United have already sold two star players in deals totalling £170m (not to mention the £130m Alexander Isak was sold to Liverpool for), it just makes it all the most bizarre that a belief could have existed, at Arsenal and/or amongst the media, that Newcastle United would countenance their prize asset leaving for little more than the £41m they paid originally for Bruno Guimaraes.
The Telegraph adding: ‘In those talks with intermediaries, the Newcastle hierarchy has made it clear they would demand a fee similar to the £100m Tottenham paid for Sandro Tonali earlier this month…Although Guimaraes would like the move and has told Newcastle of his desire to explore a transfer to the Premier League champions, he understands and appreciates the club’s desire to keep him. He will push for a departure only if Arsenal make a bid that gets close to Newcastle’s valuation. As things stand, he knows that is not the case and is scheduled to return to pre-season training at the end of this month.’
The whole thing just looks to have been a ridiculous farce and I never understood how the idea was ever given any credibility, that Newcastle United would consider selling Bruno Guimaraes at a bargain price.
You can never say never but I never felt this Bruno move to Arsenal was ever going to happen. If the story was they had been willing to pay say £90m then a very different scenario, maybe Newcastle United feeling they needed to do a deal totalling maybe £100m if Arsenal edged a little bit further with the money on offer.
It has now become a reality that Newcastle United might sell their best players in order to reinvest in the squad, especially if a player indicates they are interested in another club.
At the same time though, it has also become patently clear that Newcastle United will only potentially sell if an interested club meets their valuation.
United are not going to be bullied into selling their best player on the cheap to Arsenal.