Eddie Howe wants to keep Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak “for as long as we possibly can” but admits that he can offer “no guarantees” because Newcastle United face a “difficult summer” due to a lot of “unknown factors”.
Isak has scored 19 goals this season and has been linked with Arsenal, among others, while speculation has surrounded Guimaraes’ future all campaign, with Paris Saint-Germain among his potential suitors.
With the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) hampering Newcastle’s ability to spend, and possibly forcing them to sell a first-team player this summer, Isak and Guimaraes appear to be the club’s most-valuable assets. However, Howe wants to continue to build around the pair, rather than lose them to finance a rebuild.
“Let me tell you players like Bruno, they are not around every corner,” Howe said, when asked about Guimaraes’ future. “They are very rare. Bruno should be appreciated for everything he brings. My intention would be to keep Bruno at the club for as long as we possibly can.
“I can never make guarantees though. That would be absolutely foolish of me. We have been in football long enough to know you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. He is an integral part of the team and playing very well.”
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Pushed as to whether Guimaraes will stay, Howe replied: “If a player can double his wages you are already in a difficult position. You have created that scenario and I am giving you the truth and the reality.
“Who knows what the future holds. But for our part in it we have to try to make the player at home and happy, develop them, develop their careers, their talents and hopefully that is enough to keep them here for a long time.
“A lot will depend on our ambitions and where the club is going to go in the foreseeable future. You set your ambitions not just in terms of talking but in actions, so we need to show to them that we are a club moving forward.”
Isak has scored 15 goals in 19 Premier League appearances in a breakout campaign for Newcastle (Photo by Lee Parker – CameraSport via Getty Images)
When it comes to Isak, Howe views interest in the striker as a compliment and wants the striker to keep scoring, rather than ward off potential suitors by his form dropping.
“I don’t fear that,” Howe said, when asked if he was concerned that Isak’s form is alerting other clubs. “In some senses, that’s what you want because it means your players are playing at a level that everyone appreciates and I want my players, all of them, to be playing above what they think they’re capable of being.
“So no, I don’t think fear is the right word. I want Alex to keep scoring goals, I want him to keep being in the headlines — I’m sure he wants the same thing — but we want to keep him long term.”
Given the long-term injuries to Jamaal Lascelles and Sven Botman, the centre-backs, which have added further complications to what is already expected to be a busy window, Howe accepts that it will be a hard summer to navigate.
“It’s going to be a difficult summer,” Howe said. “Not to say what positions we want to improve, because I would have my idea where I want to take the team, but there are a lot of unknown factors going into the summer so it’s going to be quite difficult to prepare for what’s going to happen.”
Darren Eales, the CEO, suggested in January that Newcastle needed to sell in order to buy due to PSR and that could be the case come the summer, too. Yet Howe refused to be drawn on whether that is the scenario facing the club.”I’m not sure if that’s for public consumption,” Howe said. “That’s better for us to keep behind closed doors.”
GO DEEPER
Why Newcastle have no intention of selling Isak
(Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)
