Bruno Guimaraes is back in Newcastle after the World Cup and vultures may be circling. But neither club nor player will want to break this partnership…
The football didn’t take long to return from its sojourn in the Middle East and the first tranche of fixtures in the EFL Cup suggested it could have probably done with another few days off.
At St James’ Park, Newcastle United took another step towards claiming their first major trophy in 54 years with a 1-0 win against Bournemouth, a match which they dominated without creating too many chances and which was eventually decided by an own goal.
Winning while not playing well is A Good Thing and Newcastle supporters have had an exciting 2022, what with all that oil money starting to flow through their club, but the truth remains that having all that money is only part of the conundrum of running a Premier League club in the 21st century. That money has to be spent well, and little money was better spent over the course of the last 12 months than the £40m that the club dropped on Bruno Guimaraes.
Guimaraes doesn’t seem to command the same level of attention as other Brazilian players in the Premier League, and perhaps he’s benefiting from being out of the spotlight. During the World Cup his role within the Brazilian squad was fairly peripheral; he emerged from the substitutes’ bench for their final group game against Cameroon and, after missing a couple of chances, was on the receiving end of a fairly predictable monstering from some Brazil fans afterwards.
Considering the Brazil story, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that he was largely a benchwarmer during the World Cup. Less than 72 hours after the tournament ended, he was back on the pitch for Newcastle. It wasn’t his greatest performance in a Newcastle shirt, but a win’s a win. Another step towards Wembley confirmed.
It was hardly as though Guimaraes was an unknown quantity when he arrived in Europe from Atletico Parananense to Lyon in 2020. Other clubs were interested, including Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Benfica, but it was the involvement of Junior Pernambucano – who’d previously played for Vasco Da Gama, the Brazilian team that Guimaraes’ family supports – that eventually sweetened the deal for him to move to Lyon instead for €20m. It took them less than two years to double their money.
The figures rather speak for themselves. Guimaraes is currently ranked second in the entire Premier League for tackles, duels…
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