Newcastle ‘one to watch’ in pursuit of ‘fabulous’ £35m defender – journalist

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Newcastle United could now look to sign Bayer Leverkusen centre-back Piero Hincapie in 2024 according to journalist Ben Jacobs.

Newcastle managed to avoid a major catastrophe in defence recently thanks to a well-timed international break. Both Fabian Schar and Sven Botman were carrying knocks going into the break.

Had there been a fixture scheduled Eddie Howe would have been looking at putting together a makeshift defensive back-line which could have been disastrous.

Newcastle are sorely lacking depth at centre-back

While Dan Burn can cover Sven Botman’s role on the left side of centre, Newcastle only have Jamaal Lascelles to cover Fabian Schar and with all due respect to the club captain, he’s not been at the required level for a while.

Now though, Newcastle have apparently added their name to a list of Premier League suitors for Ecuadorian defender Piero Hincapie who is impressing at Bayer Leverkusen.

Tottenham, Liverpool and West Ham have all been linked with the 21-year-old defender, but now Ben Jacobs has told Give Me Sport that Newcastle could be the ones to watch, saying: “I would keep an eye probably next summer on Hincapie as well for Newcastle. They didn’t seriously entertain anything over the summer and he’s contracted at Bayer Leverkusen until 2027 I believe, so there wasn’t necessarily a realistic chance of them selling last summer.

“But that’s a player that would love to play in the Premier League and if anyone puts down £35 million, he is going to push for that move to England for sure. West Ham United are the other club that have taken a little look at Hincapie.

Hincapie will need to work on his discipline if he moves to Newcastle

“So Newcastle could be one to watch there, we’ll have to wait and see. But I do think there’ll be in the market for a centre back at some point in 2024, whether January or whether next summer.”

Hincapie, who has been said to have a ‘fabulous future‘ ahead of him, is also left-footed which means he may be more of a back-up for Botman than for Schar, but Eddie Howe has spoken of wanting two players for every position at Newcastle so the move still makes sense.

One thing that may be of concern to Newcastle, however, is his disciplinary record. Last season Hincapie picked up two suspensions for picking up two yellow cards, as well as a one-game ban for accumulation of bookings.

He also picked up a further suspension for the final game of the season for a red card, that suspension carried into this season causing him to miss Leverkusen’s first three league games.