Sandro Tonali was briefly linked with Arsenal on deadline day, a sequence of events that prompted clarification from his agent and firm words from Newcastle United\u2019s manager. Reports suggested agent Giuseppe Riso had been involved, although he denied having any contact with Arsenal. Riso did, however, tease talks with Newcastle next month that could pave the way for a summer transfer instead \u2026 \u201cif Newcastle are open to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Magpies boss Eddie Howe moved quickly to close down speculation and to protect the group\u2019s attention ahead of a crucial cup fixture. \u201cHis only focus was on Manchester City and trying to win that game so there’s absolutely no issue with Sandro himself,\u201d Howe told reporters on Tuesday, ahead of the next day\u2019s Carabao Cup semi final second leg at the Etihad Stadium\u2014Newcastle trail 2\u20130 on aggregate from the first leg.<\/p>\n
Howe added: \u201cHe\u2019s very happy and committed so I find it difficult to talk about things I don\u2019t know too much about. I can only talk about Sandro as the person and player, and his mindset here and now. Having discussed things with him, he\u2019s absolutely fine.\u201d Those comments underline the manager\u2019s assessment that Tonali\u2019s attention remains on the immediate challenge rather than transfer talk.<\/p>\n
At the other end of the Premier League landscape, Arsenal must adapt to the absence of Martin Merino, with the club unable to use the window to bring in even a short-term replacement. The natural internal candidate, Ethan Nwaneri, left on loan to Marseille just over a week earlier on terms that include no break clause.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta does, however, have options within his squad. Kai Havertz has returned to availability in attacking midfield after a long spell out through injury, and Christian N\u00f8rgaard can be used to plug gaps, albeit in a different role. Merino has also been deployed further forward as an emergency striker, and squad depth has been strengthened by the presence of Havertz and Gabriel Jesus alongside primary No. 9 Viktor Gy\u00f6keres. As valuable as Merino is, losing him is not as disastrous as it might previously have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howe says Tonali remains focused after deadline speculation; club weigh options for Merino absence..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1067,194,172],"tags":[983,1066,606],"class_list":["post-6480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carabao-cup","category-newcastle-united","category-epl","tag-agents","tag-carabao-cup","tag-christian-norgaard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}