Newcastle bargain buy Nick Pope now has the platform to become England No.1

For all the talk of Newcastle flooding the transfer market with oil money, their start to the summer window has been disappointingly sensible.

Eddie Howe’s first business was to buy Matt Target after borrowing the full-back through the second half of last season. His second signing will be Nick Pope, with the Burnley goalkeeper on Tyneside on Thursday to drop his trousers and cough for the Toon doctors.

The fee, whether it is £10million or £12million, represents a good deal for Newcastle. Actually, it’s a sodding bargain. Pope has a year left on his current contract at Burnley, but the Clarets have the option to extend those terms for an extra 12 months. That they aren’t demanding a higher fee – only last month it was reported they wanted £40million – highlights either Burnley’s generosity or their desperation. Draw your own conclusions.

Regardless, Newcastle must be delighted to seize upon what could turn out to be one of the deals of the summer. In Pope, Howe has landed an established England international, and the English stopper with the best saves percentage in the Premier League. In 2020/21, no one in the top flight saved a higher percentage of the shots they faced. For the last two seasons, Pope has conceded 4.9 and 4.4 goals fewer than xG suggests he ought to have done. Meanwhile, Newcastle have conceded 2.5 and 2.6 more than they really should.

That is not to say that Newcastle haven’t already got a good goalkeeper. Martin Dubravka is exactly that, but his form and fitness has been questioned over the last couple of campaigns. Howe will no doubt insist upon the new man’s unveiling that he now has two No.1s and genuine competition for the place between the St James’ sticks. But Pope will be going to Newcastle as first choice, and unless the 30-year-old does himself a mischief in the meantime, it will be him who takes the gloves when Nottingham Forest rock up on Tyneside on August 6.

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That will have been important for Pope to establish before putting pen to paper as he has no time to waste. Moving to Newcastle offers him the platform to mount a serious challenge for England’s No.1 spot. In time for the World Cup if he’s quick.

Pope has eight international caps to his name, spread throughout each of the five years since his first call-up in 2018. He has always been one of Gareth Southgate’s trusted picks but consistently as the…