Newcastle closely watching 23-year-old defender, he just suffered play-off heartbreak

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While Newcastle United’s scouting trip to Blackburn was primarily to watch Adam Wharton, a young defender, Hayden Carter, has also caught his eye.

Yesterday I wrote that Newcastle‘s sporting director Dan Ashworth had been keeping tabs on Adam Wharton of Blackburn, with Ashworth personally attending games at Ewood Park to run the rule over the midfielder.

It seems that it’s not only Wharton who caught the eye with 23-year-old centre-back Hayden Carter also making the scout’s list according to the same report by The Daily Mail.

Carter has now established himself into the Blackburn first team

2022/23 had been the Blackburn academy graduate’s breakthrough season after a few loan spells in League One, and his inclusion in the first-team came up trumps last week as it was Carter’s goal that kept Blackburn’s playoff hopes alive.

Unfortunately, despite a sensational goal by Adam Wharton contributing to a 4-3 win over Milwall yesterday, Blackburn missed out on the playoffs with Coventry and … some other team … taking the remaining places.

Carter played the entirety of Blackburn’s last 13 games having established himself firmly into Jon Dahl Tomasson’s side this season.

While Wharton definitely sounds like the most exciting prospect of the two, especially after seeing his screamer against Milwall, there must be something to Carter too for Newcastle to have taken an interest.

Newcastle could move for a double swoop on Blackburn this summer

At 23 he seems a bit older than what Ashworth would usually look at as he tends to like to bring in players as young as possible to mould them into the Newcastle way of playing. Not that 23 is particularly old, even in football terms, it just seems like it has taken Carter a while to break through.

That being said, there have been many top players who got started late at the top level. Jamie Vardy is a prime example.

As with Wharton, no fee has been mentioned for Carter but it’s likely that Blackburn won’t want to lose such hot prospects without feeling they’ve been fairly compensated. With Newcastle so determined to build for the future, they could move for a double transfer swoop on Blackburn this summer, especially after they missed out on promotion.