Arsenal have made a verbal offer to sign Newcastle United midfielder Bruno Guimaraes.
The proposal, which was communicated to Newcastle through intermediaries, was worth less than £60million and has been rebuffed by the north east club.
Newcastle insist they will not entertain offers for the 28-year-old Brazilian, who is currently with his country preparing for a World Cup last-32 tie against Japan in North America.
Guimaraes joined Newcastle from Lyon for in January 2022 and has established himself as a key part of Eddie Howe’s side. He has made over 150 appearances for the Tyneside club in the Premier League, scoring 30 times, and is also an important player for Carlo Ancelotti’s Brazil.
Newcastle have already sold winger Anthony Gordon to Barcelona this summer in a deal worth £69.3m ($93.2m), with a sell-on clause also included, and are facing a fight to keep hold of Guimaraes’s midfield partner, Sandro Tonali.
As reported by The Athletic, Tonali is the subject of interest from Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City this summer.
‘Losing Guimaraes would feel existential’
Analysis by Newcastle correspondent Chris Waugh
If Newcastle were to sell Guimaraes AND Sandro Tonali during the same summer, then they may as well just give up now.
The optics that would send — for supporters and to current and prospective players — would be terrible and would compound what has already been a challenging off-season.
Guimaraes is Newcastle captain, he is their talisman and he has an emotional bond with supporters. Remove him from the side and Newcastle lose their creative heartbeat and offensive purpose (as the statistics when he does not feature prove).
With Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak having already left over the past 10 months and Tonali set to follow, Newcastle losing three of their best players is already hard enough for Eddie Howe to deal with. But were he to see Guimaraes depart too, even if the money on offer was exorbitant (which this proposal via an intermediary was not), then Howe would head into 2026-27 with an inexperienced and untested side.
Rightly, Newcastle insist Guimaraes is not for sale and they have no intention of allowing the Brazil international to leave.
Occasionally players can be invaluable to a team. Guimaraes is certainly that for Newcastle right now. Losing him, especially when no first-XI signings have arrived, would feel existential.