Newcastle United’s ‘top’ £60m masterstroke rocks Chelsea ally even after transfer flex

If the rest of Europe did not already know a lot about Tino Livramento, they certainly do now.

UEFA even hailed Livramento as a ‘powerful, athletic and technically strong full-back’ after naming the Newcastle United defender in their team of the tournament at the under-21 Euros.

Those words won’t come as a surprise to Thomas Tuchel, of course, who watched England triumph in the final.

The England boss wanted to see Livramento ‘taking responsibility, knowing that it is on his shoulders’ ahead of the World Cup next summer, and the 22-year-old certainly stepped up in Slovakia.

Not only was Livramento a member of England’s leadership group in camp – the defender also led by example on the field after relishing the ‘privilege’ of representing his country at a tournament for the first time.

Livramento, like Anthony Gordon a couple of years ago, now returns to Newcastle as a European champion and you would not bet against the full-back following in his team-mate’s footsteps and building on a memorable tournament.

Newcastle will certainly hope that history repeats itself.

This has been a quiet start to the window for Newcastle, whose rivals have made a number of aggressive moves, and the Magpies need quality reinforcements.

However, Livramento’s performances in recent months, whether it is at right-back or left-back, serve as a reminder that there is still so much more to come from a player already on Newcastle’s books.

Such potential convinced Newcastle to persevere in protracted negotiations with Southampton in 2023 – even though the black-and-whites already had a quality right-back in Kieran Trippier.

Yet there was a reason why Newcastle knew they had to act.

ChronicleLive previously reported that ‘all the big teams’ liked Livramento, who has previously had admirers at Liverpool, Spurs and others.

Hence why senior figures at Newcastle privately recognised that they might not even have been able to sign Livramento if the 22-year-old had not just recovered from a serious injury.

In truth, waiting another year to see how Livramento fared in his first full season back playing at Southampton would have been a bigger risk as the former Chelsea full-back’s value could have rocketed and he could have gone elsewhere.

That did not happen, of course.

Chelsea have long since moved on, after banking pure profit from Livramento’s sell-on clause, and the Blues have beaten Newcastle to a number of signings in the last 12 months alone, including Joao Pedro, Liam Delap and Tosin Adarabioyo.

However, Joe Cole, who worked with Livramento during his time at Chelsea’s academy, has still rued how the defender and fellow full-back Lewis Hall ended up leaving the Blues.

“With Chelsea, when we talk about the new model and we praise them, you still lost Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall, another top player,” he said this week after Newcastle paid a combined £60m for the pair.

“They’ve gone out. Are the ones coming in better? Tino Livramento would get in Chelsea’s team now.”