Newcastle United won’t be signing Andrey Santos after Fabrizio Romano gave his move to Chelsea the ‘here we go’ signal.
Romano has taken to Twitter to claim that Chelsea are ‘closing in’ on signing Santos and the ‘here we go’ is imminent.
Romano claims that personal terms are almost agreed with Santos and Chelsea’s deal to sign him is now at the final stages.
Chelsea are placing a keen focus on signing young players in the Todd Boehly era.
Vasco da Gama midfielder Santos is now set to follow Gabriel Slonina, Carney Chukwuemeka, Cesare Casadei and Carney Chukwuemeka all joining.
Boehly can co seemingly want to make sure Chelsea have top young talent emerging in the coming years and Santos is joining that recruitment drive.
Newcastle to miss out on Santos
Spare a thought for Newcastle though, who will have thought they had Santos wrapped up.
90Min reported in October that Newcastle were confident of signing Santos having pursued his signature for more than a year.
Newcastle also have a strong relationship with Bertolucci Sports, the agency Santos is using.
They also represent Bruno Guimaraes, so Newcastle will have been very confident of securing the 18-year-old’s signature.
Newcastle picked out Santos as a huge talent after scoring eight times in 33 Serie B games for Vasco da Gama in 2022.
Yet the Brazilian has now picked a move to Chelsea instead, leaving Newcastle gutted as what looked like a nailed-on January signing has now drifted away.
Not only are Newcastle missing out on Santos, but they now have to watch him play for a Premier League rival in Chelsea.
Whether that is the right decision for Santos and his development remains to be seen, but Newcastle must now go back to the drawing board for a new target.
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