Newcastle’s Turkey scouting mission has unearthed another gem in Arda Guler

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Arda Guler is a young attacking midfielder playing for Fenerbahce who has caught the eye of several of Europe’s top teams including Newcastle United.

Newcastle have had their scouts deployed to Turkey lately and they’ve so far found a few potential transfer targets for Eddie Howe this summer, but the most exciting one could be Arda Guler.

The Fenerbahce wonderkid is attracting interest from Arsenal, Manchester City, Barcelona and PSG according to TurkishFootball.com.

Newcastle’s scouts have watched Guler several times this season

The Magpies’ scouts have watched Guler on a number of occasions and are said to be impressed with what they’ve seen. Guler has impressed for the Super Lig side this season with a return of four goals and four assists in 24 appearances in all competitions.

The 18-year-old has a clause in his contract that will allow him to leave for £4.3million if his playing time doesn’t exceed 1500 minutes this season. He’s currently on 749 minutes so it’s very unlikely that he’ll meet that threshold.

Fenerbahce are said to want closer to £17.5million for the player Manchester City scouts claimed has ‘superstar potential‘.

Guler’s influences don’t get much better than this

It’s not just Man City’s scouts who have been singing Guler’s praises with Turkish-born Mesut Ozil a big fan of the youngster. Guler replaced Ozil as Fenerbahce’s number 10 this season after the German international backed him to do so last year.

Guler himself says he bases his playing style on Ozil as well as Kevin de Bruyne and Bruno Fernandes, so he clearly backs his own ability.

If Newcastle are able to swoop while his clause is active and pick Guler up for under £5million that would be an amazing bit of business. Obviously the competition is going to be fierce, but it all comes back to that Champions League qualification. If we secure that this season then there’s no reason we can’t fend off interest from other top clubs.

To be honest, if the kid is as good as all the reports, then even £20million could be a bargain.