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One of Newcastle’s top targets this summer is Wolves’ winger Pedro Neto, but signing the Portugal international would be a risk.

The Magpies are looking to sign a right-sided forward ahead of the new season, with Newcastle boasting a £100million transfer budget.

The majority of that budget is expected to go towards a winger, with the likes of Jarrod Bowen and Michael Olise linked with moves to Tyneside. However, the former is not going to join, while the latter has already gone to Bayern Munich.

Pedro Neto is another option on Newcastle’s radar, with Wolves looking to receive £60million. Neto is more likely to join Newcastle than Bowen, but his injury history has led to some concern from Toon officials.

Were it not for those injury concerns, Neto would probably be the perfect addition to Eddie Howe’s squad.

Pedro Neto’s attributes

In the 2023/24 season Pedro Neto had 13 goal involvements, with most being assists as he helped lay on 11 goals for teammates.

His key contribution to his teammates was through his creativity on the wing. The 24-year-old had a lot of good attacking data despite playing in one of the worst teams going forwards last season.

Neto’s data seems remarkable given the fact he was in a Wolves team that, at times, was allergic to scoring. They had the fifth lowest goal tally with 50 goals last season and the fourth worst expected goals (47.21xG). He managed to provide 38 key passes and create eight big chances when the Wolves team were fighting to stay up and played very dull football. 

At Newcastle his true talents could be unleashed with more attacking freedom and beneficial tactics.

Newcastle can unlock his potential

For Newcastle, Neto will be a welcome addition to the squad, offering unique traits that the current wingers do not have. Although the team did not have a big issue with creating chances last season, the creativity was concentrated around a few individuals.

Bruno Guimares, Kieran Trippier and Anthony Gordon contributed 43.3% of the teams 424 key passes that were created. This shows that the creativity is a bit too reliant on these individuals and if they are marked out or injured then the squad suffers.

Pedro Neto would be able to alleviate some of the pressure with his different abilities. He is a creative winger as compared to someone like Harvey Barnes who is a clinical finisher, or Anthony Gordon who is an all rounder.

Neto brings a bit of a tactical difference which will be important for the squad. He also adds quality in the depth of the squad so that players can be rotated and that the injury issues of last season do not persist into this campaign.

History of huge injury problems

The significant worry about signing Pedro Neto is that he has a history of serious injuries affecting his availability.

In the 2021/22 season, Neto suffered a serious Patella injury and this started a continuous set of problems.

Before this point, Neto had fairly good availability with only 24 games missed in his career to that point and just minor issues.

But after this point the winger has been plagued and has not been available consistently for his team.

297 days were missed in 2021/22, 127 days lost out due to an ankle injury in the 2022/23 season and then Pedro Neto had a recurrent hamstring injury in the 2023/24 season which saw him have two incidents that saw him miss 125 days in total and 23 games.

If the club move ahead with a purchase Newcastle will be taking on a significant risk as he has not yet proven that he has returned to his ability to play often enough in a season to be an asset to the squad. As good as Pedro Neto is, if he never plays then he will only be a drain on vital club resources.

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