Newcastle United chief executive David Hopkinson has broken the club's silence on the impending sale of Bruno Guimaraes to Arsenal, confirming the midfielder is set to join the newly-crowned Premier League champions in a deal worth around £75 million.
Guimaraes has already completed a medical and is poised to be unveiled by the Gunners imminently. The move marks the exit of a third key Newcastle player in a matter of weeks, following Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali's departures to Barcelona and Tottenham respectively. Eddie Howe also stepped down as manager last month, reportedly in part due to his belief that Guimaraes would eventually be sold.
Newcastle's stance on the transfer
Initially, the Magpies had no interest in letting their captain leave, but they eventually relented after he informed the club of his desire to join Arsenal. Hopkinson claimed that the Gunners were forced to pay over the odds for the Brazil international's signature.
Speaking to Chronicle Live, he said: "It was not the fee that I think Arsenal had hoped to pay and of course we would have liked an even higher number. But I think you're dealing with sophisticated actors on both sides and that's what negotiation looks like."
Record fee and future plans
The transfer fee represents the largest sum ever paid in football for a player of Guimaraes' age in that position. While speculation had centred on a figure of £85m, and even a valuation approaching £100m, Hopkinson maintains that Newcastle secured a 'good deal'.
He added: "It's a fee that satisfies us. If you want to put a merchandising spin on it, it's the highest fee for a player in that position at that age. Is that a good deal for Newcastle United? I believe it is. But Arsenal is getting a very special player and special person so this works from a financial perspective for both sides."
Bazoumana Toure, Aladji Bamba, Ewen Jaouen, Lukas Hornicek and Sean Steur have already arrived at Newcastle this summer. However, Hopkinson confirmed that further signings are expected, with the squad that secured 12th place last season deemed in need of refreshing by club officials.
He remarked: "This is a moment of change. Life is all change but there's certain moments of punctuation and we're in one of those moments of punctuation right now. Drawing attention to that is not something to be fearful of, it's where we kick off."
Transfer chief's perspective
Transfer chief Ross Wilson will now focus on securing a replacement for Guimaraes. While the Brazilian's departure bore some resemblance to Alexander Isak's high-profile transfer to Liverpool last summer, Wilson believes his conduct throughout remained exemplary.
Discussing Bruno's departure, Wilson commented: "We didn't want to sell Bruno. It wasn't in the plan to sell Bruno. None of us - or ownership - wanted to sell Bruno. He's our captain, he was very, very important to us and the debate over his price - it's a world record fee for a player of his age.
"What we had to weigh up was, very respectfully from Bruno with his behaviour towards us, very emotionally as well, effectively told us he wanted to leave and move on. That doesn't mean he can go but it certainly plays a part in what our thinking is when we hit a certain range of number. But there's no point in saying it was part of our strategy and was in our thinking this summer - it wasn't.
"But we have got to be flexible and react to things that happen. It might have been in our plan to sign one player but we didn't get him so we move on to another. We can only be honest about that. We'd love Bruno Guimaraes to be in our squad this summer but I'm sure there are other clubs that have lost players that wish they were in their squads this season. It's the world we live in, we had to adapt, we had to react.
"Having such an important player leave is disappointing but having a really important player who doesn't want to play here anymore - for himself, he's honest about that - it was the only decision we could make."
