Joelinton is not a £40 million player, that much is obvious to anyone that's seen him play. Former Magpies defender Steve Howey has been discussing rumours with Football FanCast that the club were offered him for just £20 million before they threw a club-record fee at Hoffenheim.

Despite his failures in front of goal since he arrived on Tyneside in 2019, Steve Bruce has always persisted with Joelinton having handed him 69 appearances in the Premier League over two seasons which has yielded a return of just six goals.

If it wasn't for Callum Wilson's 12 goals and the arrival of Joe Willock with eight goals, the Magpies would have had a lot more nervous end to the season and that comes down to them getting recruitment spot on, something that didn't happen in 2019.

It will baffle Newcastle fans that the club turned down their current number nine for half the price they ended up paying, but that is what may have happened as Howey exclusively told Football FanCast:

"You have to look into that deal and think, who did that deal and why was it that much? Surely someone must have looked at him and realised that he's not worth that much.

"You hear rumours that he was offered to Newcastle for £20 million but they turned it down before they went and paid £40 million for him the following summer."

Lee Charnley has previously admitted that the club had agreed a deal to sign Joelinton earlier in 2019 but they could not proceed with the deal because former manager, Rafa Benitez, did not want to sign the player, something which proved smart.

There have been reports suggesting that Bruce will not be able to sign players for anything close to what Joelinton cost as Mike Ashley is set to hand the manager an embarrassing transfer budget of just £10 million for this upcoming transfer window.