It’s happening. Arsenal have agreed a £75 million fee with Newcastle United for captain Bruno Guimaraes.

According to cbinews.tv, the Brazilian midfielder has now been given permission to travel to London for his medical.

This has been bubbling away for a while. Guimaraes told Newcastle bosses earlier this summer that if a suitable offer came from Arsenal, he wanted to take it. The Gunners saw an opening bid rejected, but now the 28-year-old looks set to join the Premier League champions.

It’s a huge call from Newcastle, who were desperate to keep him. The club made it clear that if their captain had said he wanted to stay, they would have turned down any offer – from Arsenal or anyone else. But Guimaraes has been respectful and firm throughout. He sees this as his last big opportunity to win major titles.

There were plenty of attempts to persuade him to stay and lots of positive conversations, but his mind was made up.

From Newcastle’s side, it was always going to be their terms or no deal. Similar to the exits of Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon. They refused all early pushes from intermediaries, which started at around £40-45m back in June. Arsenal, via agents, insisted they wouldn’t get near Newcastle’s valuation, so Newcastle simply refused to engage. For weeks Arsenal didn’t contact Newcastle directly, which sources at St James’ Park found bizarre.

Eventually, two conditions had to be met: Guimaraes had to say he wanted to leave, and the fee had to become one of the highest ever paid in world football for a player over 28. Both have now happened.

Crucially, Newcastle also insisted it had to be handled respectfully. Unlike the Alexander Isak situation where he refused to train, Guimaraes attended the training camp in Spain and complied immaculately. The club insist there has been no fallout and huge mutual respect remains.

If this deal goes through as expected, Newcastle will have banked more than £240m from player sales this summer alone, following Anthony Gordon’s £69.3m move to Barcelona and Sandro Tonali’s £100m switch to Spurs.

It’s easy to see why Arsenal want him. The Newcastle skipper is one of the most complete midfielders in the Premier League – he can dominate, destroy, score, create, and his passing range matches his physicality.

If the Gunners get it over the line, he’ll be joining a stacked midfield containing Declan Rice, Martin Zubimendi, Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino and Myles Lewis-Skelly. The big question now is, where does he fit in?

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