As formidable as the midfield trio of Sandro Tonali, Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes can be, the age of the Brazilians needs to be something that Eddie Howe and the recruitment team take a serious look at over the next 12 months.

Fresh young faces are needed in the squad: Lewis Miley is yet to really break the glass ceiling above him, the jury’s still out on Jacob Ransey, whilst Joe Willock feels condemned to being a squad player for the rest of his time at the club.

So it makes a lot of sense why in the past few days we’ve been linked with a couple of youngsters with immense potential, those being Club Brugge’s Aleksandar Stankovic and AZ Alkmaar’s Kees Smit.

And now a new report from Brazil is tying us with a move for one of the country’s fastest-rising midfield stars…

Elias eyed up by Magpies?

According to Brazilian outlet Bola Vip, Newcastle are pushing to sign 21-year-old Palmeiras midfielder Allan Elias, and want to get a deal done swiftly.

With a release clause worth close to €100m in his current contract, Elias is clearly highly-valued by the São Paulo-based side. They’ve already turned out a big money bid worth €20m from Zenit St Petersburg, and club insiders reckon that they expect bids to go in excess of €30m.

Palmeiras is proving to be a hotbed of talent in recent memory, with Endrick and Estevao completing significant moves to Real Madrid and Chelsea respectively in the last few years.

So it’s no surprise to see there being intense competition amongst Premier League clubs to try and sign the next big star from Palmeiras, with each of Brighton, West Ham, Everton and Fulham being linked with Elias.

Youth focus continues – could Elias succeed?

Over the last year, we’ve gone to great lengths to sign some top prospects from under the noses of even the European elite like Real Madrid, Ajax and Barcelona.

Unfortunately, the latest crop of rising stars hasn’t quite taken off like we may have hoped. Antonio Cordero for example came off a solid campaign with Malaga and then the Spain U-19s to now enduring a torrid loan spell at Westerlo in the Belgian top flight.

But the praise surrounding Alan Elias feels different, and the supposed high intent we have on signing him to get him into our Premier League squad is unlike anything we’ve seen from any of the youngsters we’ve signed in the last few windows.

€30m is a hefty price tag for a youngster with no Premier League experience who’ll be competing with the very best our club has to offer for starting minutes, but this does seem like a sensible signing with tremendous upside, even if it means flipping him for profit in the near future.