Newcastle ‘hopeful’ of stunning Liverpool hijack with ‘medical booked’ to complete second signing

Newcastle United are hopeful that they can beat Liverpool to the signing of Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi, according to reports.

The Magpies have so far brought in one signing in the form of young Spaniard Antoñito Cordero on a free transfer from Malaga with Eddie Howe’s side missing out on some of their top targets.

Newcastle have been keen on Matheus Cunha and Joao Pedro with both players joining other clubs, while Bryan Mbeumo – who is set to join Manchester United – was another target.

But the Geordies, who qualified for the Champions League and won the League Cup last season, have not been put off and are still competing for top signings.

Liverpool had seemed the most active club in the pursuit of Crystal Palace centre-back Guehi with claims that the England international is ‘pushing to join’.

But GiveMeSport claim that Newcastle ‘remain hopeful of winning the race to sign’ Guehi as the board ‘will prioritise the addition of a centre-back’ after signing Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest.

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Newcastle are ‘refusing to give up on striking a deal for Guehi’ with Howe ‘sniffing an opportunity to pounce for a cut-price fee due to an awareness that the Eagles will not want to run the risk of him leaving as a free agent at the end of the upcoming season.’

But before that Newcastle will wrap up a deal to sign Elanga after transfer expert Fabrizio Romano gave his ‘here we go’ confirmation on Monday night.

Romano wrote on X: ‘EXCLUSIVE: Anthony Elanga to Newcastle, here we go! Deal in place club to club with Nottingham Forest for £55m. Agreement also in place with player’s camp on long term deal. Excellent addition for #NUFC.’

And the Italian journalist took to social media again on Tuesday morning to confirm that Elanga has his medical tests booked in ahead of a transfer.

Romano added: ‘Newcastle have already booked medical tests for Anthony Elanga. It’s all done and agreed as exclusively revealed last night.’

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Chris Waddle has told Newcastle – who have also been linked with Eberechi Eze at Crystal Palace – that Guehi will cost them “a lot of cash” this summer.

Waddle said in June: “That might have been straightforward at one point, but now Crystal Palace have won the FA Cup and they’re in the Europa League. They’ll have a decent amount of money coming in but yes, in Marc Guehi and Eberechi Eze, they’ve got two players who will be getting a lot of attention this summer.

“Palace have to work out if they want to sell and try to spend what they got in a way that improves them, or they’ll try to hold onto at least one of them and kick on next season. It’s up to them to work out which way they want to go.

“People will question Palace’s ambition after they won the FA Cup and got into Europe. They need to add to their squad, so if they start selling it makes the job of rebuilding doubly hard, and if it goes wrong, they risk a relegation dogfight.

“Of course, Newcastle need a centre-half and they have money to spend, but to get either Guehi or Eze out of Selhurst Park is going to cost any team a lot of cash.”

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