Newcastle prepare for bold big-name signing battle as Arsenal eye £68m centre-back

Welcome, as always, to 3 Added Minutes’ daily digest of the biggest and boldest Premier League transfer rumours doing the rounds over the past 24 hours – and we start, as we so often do these days, at St. James’ Park, where Eddie Howe and friends are preparing for a titanic transfer tussle in the summer, at least according to reports found in The Sun and elsewhere.

Newcastle United are planning to go toe-to-toe with Paris Saint-Germain for the signature of AC Milan’s Portuguese forward Rafael Leão, who has emerged as a key target for the French giants and seems increasingly likely to leave Serie A despite penning a new five-year deal with Milan just last year.

No transfer fee is mentioned in the various reports but Transfermarkt reckon he’d set a club back around €90m (£76.7m), the better part of three times the fee that Milan paid Lille for him – not bad business from their point of view, then. Given Newcastle’s recent statements over their PSR position, it’s eminently clear that this isn’t a move that will happen in January, but this could well be the headline signing of the summer transfer window.

The 3AM Verdict: Leão is extravagantly talented and very effective, with 12 goal contributions from the left wing already this season, but we suspect that Newcastle will decide to let PSG win this one in the end – not necessarily because of the chance that the fee would spiral in a bidding war, but simply because they already have Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes in that position, and it would be a baffling move to spend so much cash on a position they seem to have so well covered already. He’s a cracking player, but Newcastle have far bigger needs to address.

Arsenal scouts at work at AFCON

One of the big rumours of the January transfer window has been that Chelsea are considering a massive bid for Sporting’s Ivory Coast centre-half Ousmane Diomande, a 20-year-old who looks like an astonishingly complete defender despite his youth – but now reports have emerged that they could face some very stiff competition from Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.

According to Sport Witness, the Gunners have sent their scouts to the Ivory Coast to watch Diomande in action at the Africa Cup of Nations – although that may not have encouraged them to make a bid, as Diomande is one of the many Ivorian players struggling to replicate their best form for the host nation, who scraped through to the knockout rounds and now face reigning champions Senegal on Monday evening. This is most likely all planning for a summer swoop, not just because Diomande is in Africa but also because Sporting have made it abundantly clear that any club who want him now will have to pay the entirety of his €80m (£68.2m) release clause.

The 3AM Verdict: Despite the fact that he hasn’t been at his best at AFCON 2023 so far, we still reckon that Diomande is a huge prospect, and he’s already playing at a very high level indeed over in Portugal. His positioning, passing and technique are all excellent, and he looks every inch like he could become one of the best ball-playing centre-backs in the game in the coming years. Arsenal should read those scouting reports very carefully.

Spurs could be back in striker market this summer

Finally, some word from the other team in North London – Football Insider have reported that Tottenham Hotspur will likely be back in the market for a striker this summer as they do not plan to exercise the purchase option they have for Timo Werner.

Apparently they can make the loan signing of the RB Leipzig forward permanent for around £15m, but Spurs are “not intent on triggering this option unless he has a stellar second half of the season.” Given that the 27-year-old is only two games into his spell at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it’s maybe a little early to render judgement, but I doesn’t seem likely that Ange Postecoglou sees Werner as a permanent option up front.

The 3AM Verdict: Werner always felt like a stopgap given that he’s not really the kind of player who thrives in a lone number nine role, and that’s what Spurs really need if they can find it. It sounds like we could see them join what is likely to be an extremely frantic and expensive summer transfer market… Victor Osimhen, anybody?