Newcastle United back to old transfer shopping haunt, two players will inevitably be linked

At the beginning of this year, Newcastle United were repeatedly sending scouts to watch FC Porto.

Representatives went sent to watch the Portuguese club in domestic action and then they decided to take in a Champions League game too. Porto lost 5-0 to Liverpool, at home, and Newcastle’s repeated scouting then took a back seat.

We covered the trips at the time, and back then the most recently linked Porto players were Iker Casillas and Vincent Aboubakar, but neither played.

Newcastle had been linked with Hector Herrera in December 2016, after another scouting trip, and that was all dragged up again by some.

That will almost certainly happen again, with A Bola reporting Newcastle had someone at the 1-0 victory over Galatasaray.

Herrera played the majority of the match, coming off in the 89th minute, and he did pretty well. The reason the links will likely be pushed again is that his contract expires in June so a free transfer is possible.

On the negative side, the Mexican midfielder is playing Champions League football and captaining Porto, so Newcastle may not be so attractive right now.

Over on the Turkish side, Newcastle were repeatedly linked with Garry Rodrigues in the summer after previous attempts to sign the Brazilian. In June it was claimed a fresh approach had been made, and then it all continued to pop up frequently.

Apart from goalkeeper Fernando Muslera, Rodrigues was arguably Galatasaray’s best player on the pitch.