Newcastle United’s £55m capture of AC Milan midfielder Sandro Tonali (£5.5m) has got many Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers asking: will this make Bruno Guimaraes (£6.0m) more of an option in 2023/24?

We investigate in this Scout Report.

SANDRO TONALI: PLAYING HISTORY

An Italian national, starting out life at Brescia, moving to the city of Milan, hirsute, a central midfielder… let the lazy Andrea Pirlo comparisons begin.

Tonali made his competitive debut for Pep Guardiola’s old team at the age of 17, winning promotion to Serie A in his second season.

Making his senior international bow in October 2019 while still a teenager, Tonali was snapped up by AC Milan a year later in a loan-to-buy deal.

Establishing himself as a first-team regular in his second season with his boyhood club, the midfielder was a key part of the Milan side that won their first Scudetto in 11 years.

Tonali was still a midfield mainstay as Milan progressed to the semi-finals of last season’s UEFA Champions League, eventually succumbing to their cross-city rivals.

He’s been involved with Italy at the UEFA European Under-21 Championship this summer; Newcastle wouldn’t have been too disappointed to see Gli Azzurrini bow out at the group stage.

TONALI’S PLAYING STYLE

The bare goal and assist figures are all a bit Joe Willock (£5.5m)/Joelinton (£6.0m), neither standing out as impressive nor bad enough so that he can be instantly dismissed.

But there’s arguably another Newcastle midfielder who Tonali most resembles.

Energetic, hard-working, an aggressive presser, a box-to-box midfielder and someone who likes to ping long passes with a varied success rate – it all sounds very Sean Longstaff (£5.0m).

“Tonali stood out for his athletics rather than the aesthetics. He’s the player who covers the most distance for Milan, and while he lacks the pace of colleagues Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao, he does more work at high speed than anyone in their team apart from cocker spaniel-turned-winger Alexis Saelemaekers.” – Italian football journalist James Horncastle

Ranking in the bottom half of midfielders for some of the orthodox defensive metrics (eg blocks, aerial duels), he doesn’t seem to be the old-school ‘number six’ that some unaware pundits and Newcastle fans believe they are getting.

TONALI’S ASSIST POTENTIAL

You may have noticed Tonali’s assist count (seven) from last season.

And one area where he does differ from the more limited Longstaff is in chance creation.

The Italian supplied more opportunities for team-mates (62) than any other Milan player in 2022/23.

But set plays played a big role in Tonali’s figures above.

Over a third of the chances he created came from free-kicks and corners, and it’ll be a tough act to oust Kieran Trippier (£6.5m) from set-piece-taking duties at Newcastle.

The Magpies were a huge threat from set plays last season, having almost 50 more efforts from free-kicks and corners than any other team. Trippier’s deliveries were a key part of that.

“He laid on more assists (seven) than any Milan player other than Leao in the league last season. But if you look at how they came about it’s a mix of energetic carries, regains, and passes lifted into the path of Leao for him to go on a dribble, as well as some sweetly-struck set pieces.” – James Horncastle

WHERE DOES TONALI FIT IN AT NEWCASTLE – AND WILL BRUNO PLAY FURTHER FORWARD?

“He is not a lone no. 6. This will not be the signing to free Bruno Guimaraes to play further forward, but rather he is seen by Newcastle as a no. 8, capable of playing either side of the Brazilian.

“He struggled at times when Bennacer was injured and he was forced to dictate the tempo. To an extent, his early struggles at the San Siro after joining from Brescia came after he was pressured to fulfil that sort of role.” – Jacob Whitehead/Thom Harris, The Athletic

“He’s very Newcastle, very Eddie Howe-like in terms of how they’ve been playing. Super fitness, high energy, tenacious, great team player, tidy on the ball.

“I wouldn’t say he’s particularly creative. He’s all right, he’ll get in the box and he’ll nick the odd goal but he’s a box-to-box machine.

“He’ll give you that and that’s how Eddie plays with his midfield. That midfield three – the first choice – they had Joelinton and Willock swapping that left-hand side, Guimaraes and Longstaff, you can’t play Champions League football and Premier League football with just those. You need five at least in there who’ve got the energy and the legs because you need to give players a breather.

“He’s a really good signing.” – Danny Murphy

The Athletic and that well-known doyen of Italian football, Danny Murphy, are emphatic in their assertion that Tonali won’t be the sole ‘six’ in Newcastle’s central midfield.

In fairness to the much-maligned Murphy, he is pretty much bang on the money with his assessment here.

It sounds, unless Howe throws us a curveball in pre-season, like Tonali will be an ‘eight’ in the usual 4-3-3 set-up.

That would leave Guimaraes as the ‘six’, from where he managed four goals and five assists in 2022/23. Not the worst returns in the world but so-so for a £6.0m FPL midfielder.

While some of us may be thinking that the Brazilian needs ‘rescuing’ from his deeper role and unleashed further forward, Howe may have exactly who he wants in that position: Guimaraes was the division’s second-best player, behind only Rodri (£5.5m), for passes under pressure per 90 minutes last season. It’s a press-resistant tempo-setter Howe desires, not a no-nonsense spoiler.

BRUNO: NUMBER EIGHT V NUMBER SIX

Above: Bruno Guimaraes’ underlying numbers in 2021/22 (left), when he was mostly playing as a number eight, and 2022/23 (right), when he was mostly playing as a number six. Most stats given are per game.

Guimaraes scored more goals in a half-season in 2021/22 than he did in the whole of 2022/23. This was no accident.

His debut campaign on Tyneside saw him mostly playing further forward as an ‘eight’, with Shelvey stationed deeper.

A chance fell to him every 46 minutes or so – but that average plummeted in the season just gone. That was chiefly due to the Brazil international assuming Shelvey’s role at the base of the midfield three.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So Tonali is probably neither a stand-out FPL option in his own right nor the catalyst to bring Bruno Guimaraes back onto the radar.

What’s worth monitoring in pre-season and in the first few Gameweeks of 2023/24 is whether Tonali eats into Trippier’s set-pieces duties. Any hint of that and Newcastle’s influential right-back becomes less appealing at £6.5m.

Tonali’s capture could be an astute legacy signing by the Magpies, with Trippier turning 33 in September and not going to be around forever. Given how much of a threat Newcastle pose from dead balls, the Italian may be the heir apparent at free-kicks and corners.