As I'm sure everyone is now aware, it has been widely reported that Bruno Guimaraes has made it known he is up for ***** nal's back door approach, with snivelling peabodies in the media spreading agent-led propaganda about how the player wants out of Newcastle United.
This will doubtless snowball while The Man himself convalesces from his bitter role in Brazil's disappointing World Cup exit, as Fabrizio Romano doubtless prepares his usual raft of 20-30 tweets a day about how Bruno hates Newcastle/only wants London.
This is brutal for a number of reasons.
The sales of Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon could be (and largely were) viewed as great money for players that had failed to excel in the unacceptable preceding season. Maximum value to reboot the squad, for which hope flickered as a couple of promising young players looked set to sign, and in one case actually even did.
Bruno Guimaraes though, was essential to the plot. The heartbeat, the talisman, the one big name player we needed to retain. The man who escapes wrath for the underperformance of last season due to his being the only consistent performances and a huge raft of the damage being done during an absence that weakened the side exponentially.