Football transfer rumours: Guimarães set for Arsenal? Newcastle to bring in Froholdt?

Eddie Howe presumably won’t be reading this page for a while. Perhaps the now departed Newcastle boss will be seeking some beach time, looking out to sea and mentally preparing his audition for the England job while his assistant Jason Tindall works on trying to be as quick over the first few yards as Anthony Barry.

The Magpies fly out to La Manga on Friday for a pre-season training camp and it remains to be seen if Bruno Guimarães, a £75m Arsenal target, will turn up to the airport, meet them in Spain or send the lads a farewell on social media while house-hunting in London. Very latest reports suggest a deal to the champions has “moved closer” following Howe’s exit.

So what about the rest of the dwindling Magpies squad? The left-back Lewis Hall is being linked with Manchester United following the upheaveal at St James’ Park which has seen Howe depart in the wake of losing Sandro Tonali to Spurs and Anthony Gordon to Barcelona. And there are further reports suggesting the Brazil midfielder Joelinton may have the hump too and is seeking a move to Saudi Arabia.

Which brings us to the man seemingly set with the task of sorting out all this Tyneside turmoil. Matthias Jaissle, a 38-year-old German, has been a big hit with Al-Ahli – handily, Newcastle share the same Saudi Public Investment Fund owners – so the chatter has already started about the club’s likely new manager raiding his old team and bringing Ivan Toney back to the Premier League.

More realistic targets lie elsewhere and, with the exit of Guimarães in mind, Newcastle have a close eye on the FC Porto star Victor Froholdt. They reportedly watched the Denmark midfielder several times last season and would expect to pay about £70m for the 20-year-old, who already has 12 caps. Eintracht Frankfurt’s Hugo Larsson and the former Nottingham Forest man Danilo, now at Botafogo, are also being linked.

While Liverpool’s players argue among themselves about who should have the captain’s armband when Virgil isn’t about, the Reds could urgently do with beefing up the squad as the summer window drifts into August. With holes in central defence and at right-back, the ideal solution would be a player who could operate in both positions – an injury-free Joe Gomez, basically. Step forward Bournemouth’s James Hill, a player Andoni Iraola knows well. It could cost the Reds £40m to reacquaint the 24-year-old with Liverpool’s new head coach.

Curtis Jones, a prominent figure in armband-gate, continues to be linked with Inter, while transfer clue-hunters were sent into a right old tizzy when Dominik Szoboszlai said “if he comes back” when referring to his fellow midfielder Alexis Mac Allister during a post-match interview about Liverpool’s leadership group. The Argentinian has been linked with Real Madrid.

In terms of perfect fit, it surely doesn’t get any better than Cristian Romero to Atlético Madrid and it’s understood that the Spaniards have rekindled their interest in the Spurs centre-back.

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And in “Do one”news, Xabi Alonso wants four or five central defenders moved on from his bloated Chelsea squad, with the club looking to sell Benoît Badiashile, Trevoh Chalobah and Axel Disasi for fees totalling about £90m.