Newcastle Left With Hail Mary to Keep Bruno Guimaraes Out of Arsenal Clutches

The Magpies are tying to keep hold of their captain after already selling Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali.

Bruno Guimarães is inching towards an exit. | Lee Parker/CameraSport/Getty Images

Incoming Newcastle United manager Matthias Jaissle is tipped to hold talks with Bruno Guimarães from the club’s training camp next week, suggesting the Magpies still have some hope he can be dissuaded from pushing through a transfer to Arsenal.

The Gunners are believed to have had two offers for Guimarães rejected already but are prepared to pay as much as $107.5 million (£80 million) after initially low balling. This week, Arsenal have been described as “increasingly confident” that a deal will be reached, with the player’s desire to trade England’s north-east coast for London a poorly kept secret.

For now, though, he remains a Newcastle player. According to the Chronicle, Newcastle’s local newspaper, Guimarães has not traveled with the rest of the squad to a training camp in Spain. The players, without departed manager Eddie Howe, took flight on Friday.

The unsettled club captain is due there on Sunday instead. Newcastle offered Guimarães flexibility following the World Cup and it seems he will take advantage of a couple of extra days’ rest.

Offered the chance to travel with his teammates on Friday, which would have first meant flying back to England after vacationing in South America, or head straight from South America to Spain two days later, Guimarães understandably took the latter option.

Once in Spain, the Chronicle report adds he will talk things through with Jaissle.

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Newcastle’s New Manager Set Unenviable First Task

Matthias Jaissle is arriving from Saudi Arabia. | Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images

The German coach is the man chosen to replace Howe at St James’ Park. Howe formally left on Friday after reports of his impending resignation earlier in the week, calling his time as Newcastle boss the “privilege of my lifetime.” He said he put his “life, heart and soul into the club” for five years and now intends to take a break from management altogether.

Guimarães was a close Howe ally and, posting a farewell message on Instagram, called his now ex-manager the “king of this club” and thanked him for “making me a better player.”

According to Sky Sports, Newcastle will pay $12.8 million (£9.5 million) in compensation for Jaissle. That will break him out of a contract with Saudi Pro League team Al Ahli, with whom he won back-to-back AFC Champions League Elite titles in 2024–25 and 2025–26.

Convincing Guimarães to stay is a huge first task that awaits Jaissle, expected to be appointed on Saturday before he meets the Brazilian midfielder on Monday.

If Jaissle is unsuccessful—and he may well be trying to shit the stable door after the horse has already bolted, even if Guimarães is handling this situation far better than Alexander Isak ever did last summer—an Arsenal transfer will surely be inevitable.

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