01 June 2023 , 06:43
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Newcastle will be offered the chance to sign Joao Felix after he was shunned by Chelsea, according to reports.
The forward has been on loan at Stamford Bridge since January and had hoped to make the switch to west London a permanent one. Mauricio Pochettino has come in though and decided the Portuguese star is not for him, leaving Felix to look elsewhere.
He fell out with Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone earlier this season and a return to the Spanish capital therefore looks unlikely. The LaLiga side are open to another loan spell away with Newcastle, now in the Champions League, being handed the chance to sign him, as per the Daily Mail.
Chelsea took on Felix's £200,000-a-week wages to land him in January, which has cost them around £9m. For that amount they have seen a return of four goals, although Felix has largely impressed in a team that have massively under delivered this term.
Newcastle are unlikely to take the same financial approach with Eddie Howe already admitting salaries can be an issue. He said: "We're not huge players of wages in the Premier League, so the big clubs will all dwarf us in terms of that. That makes it hard to attract the very, very best players on the market."
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The Magpies were able to secure a top four finish in their first full season under their new ownership. They have recruited wisely, adding the likes of Kieran Trippier, Bruno Guimarães, Sven Botman and Alexander Isak, which allowed them to break into the Champions League spots.
Eddie Howe's Newcastle are plotting their recruitment as they prepare for a Champions League season (Getty Images)Their obvious wealth has led to suggestions of what might happen in the transfer market, but Howe has attempted to keep a lid on expectations and wants to keep Newcastle's impressive record of recruitment going.
He said: "Our early look into the transfer market, there's a very small pool of players to look at. We have to recruit wisely, as we have done in every transfer window to date. This will be our toughest one.
"We’ve got try and get it right, and that’s going to underpin our success, really. I think we’ve been really, really good in the three transfer windows so far. The challenge gets harder and more difficult, because now we’ve become abetter team there’s less players that will make us better so it’s going to be a big window for us."