The £100m Arsenal and Man City transfer battle that could cause chaos this summer

It’s the kind of transfer demand that really feels as if it should be written in a collage of block capitals snipped from various newspaper adverts and tacked to a sheet of crumpled white paper; ‘£100m by the end of June, or the boy is going nowhere’. In one fell swoop, Newcastle United have attached Bruno Guimaraes to two types of ransom - kidnapper’s and king’s.

In fairness, who can really blame them? The Magpies have no great desire to sell their prized Brazilian this summer, and yet, nefarious financial forces beyond their ken might force them into doing exactly that. There is a need to balance certain books on Tyneside, and one of the swiftest and most obvious ways of appeasing the avaricious gods of FFP is to pawn the nearest shiny thing you can lay your hands on. This ‘being the richest club in world football’ lark isn’t as easy as people think, y’know.

The compromise, therefore, seems to be thus; Newcastle will consider selling Bruno, but, according to 90min, only if somebody entertains the notion of giving them upwards of £80 million for him. Fair enough. Even that feels a little rickety though.

You see, Italian transfer guru Fabrizio Romano takes the chatter one step further. Writing on social media earlier in the week, he said: ‘Bruno Guimaraes’ release clause will be valid from the last week of May to the beginning of the last week of June. £100m release clause is only valid for that month, in July/August, Newcastle would have total control of price and potential negotiations.’ Let the scramble commence.

In recent weeks, the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal, and French giants Paris Saint-Germain have all been linked with prospective raids for Bruno. This, however, feels like the first time that those clubs have been given a tangible idea of exactly how much it would cost to prise him away from St. James’ Park. None of that trio are averse to spending £100 million on a player, although in the case of Arsenal in particular, you would imagine that their priority for the transfer window remains to acquisition of a world class centre forward.

Nevertheless, the terms have been set - according to Romano, at least - and it is now up to Guimaraes’ suitors to decide whether or not they are willing to satisfy them. If they do, however, it could bring about chaos in the market.

The whole point of Newcastle selling a key player in the coming months would be to free up the requisite funds needed to go a spree of their own. Bruno’s potential exit might, therefore, be the first falling domino in a train of high profile raids that reverberate throughout the Premier League and beyond.

And then, of course, there is the fact that whoever misses out on the South American - whether that be City, Arsenal, or both - will presumably look to recruit from elsewhere. Could the tussle for the Newcastle star have implications for, say, Aston Villa and Douglas Luiz, or Wolves and Joao Gomes?

Only time will tell, but one thing is already certain, this is a £100 million transfer battle that is likely to have far reaching implications.