Newcastle have lined up a late loan move for Bournemouth winger Jordan Ibe according to the Northern Echo.
The piece claims that Steve Bruce is keen to sign another attacker before the window shuts at 5pm tomorrow and sates that Ibe is a target, with the club hoping to see the Cherries sanction a loan exit in the next 24 hours.
Scott Wilson – the Northern Echo’s chief sports writer – also claims that Lille midfielder Thiago Maia is a player the club have watched on a ‘number of occasions in the last 12 months’, with the Brazilian being another player who’s been strongly linked with a possible move to St James’ Park during the last few days of the transfer window.
Back to Ibe, the Sun’s Alan Nixon actually reported our interest in the winger last weekend, however I suspect we would only make a move for the 23-year-old should the likes of Jacob Murphy go out on loan.
That said, I imagine Bournemouth may be willing to let Ibe leave after they signed Liverpool winger Harry Wilson on loan last night.
We do have TWO domestic loan deals left to use up (Rondon and Kenedy were used last summer) and it wouldn’t surprised me if we looked to make use of those in the next 24 hours, but I struggle to see why we’d want Ibe.
While he would give us another option in attack, I’m not sure where he fits into a 3-5-2 system – especially when we have the likes of Joelinton, Almiron, Saint-Maximin, Muto, Gayle, Atsu and Aarons in our ranks already.
He’s made little progress at Bournemouth since completing a £16m move from Liverpool in 2016, bagging just 5 goals and 9 assists across the last two seasons.
Maybe he needs a move away to reignite his career, but is he really going to get the game time needed to achieve that?
