REPORT: Newcastle set to sign Yankuba Minteh from Odense

Newcastle United will sign 18-year-old Odense winger Yankuba Minteh in the next few hours. The deal, first reported by Fabrizio Romano on Friday, June 2, is believed to be a permanent one pending only a work permit.

The Gambian forward will complete a move to Tyneside ahead of next season by a fee quoted at €7m, again per Romano. The only two things pending are acquiring the aforementioned work permit and passing a medical, scheduled to take place in the next few hours.

After posting his original tweet, Romano added fresh information about this deal writing that according to his information, Newcastle are “already exploring options to loan out Yankuba Minteh once he joins the club.”

This, in turn, looks a lot like a Kuol-redux. Last winter, Newcastle acquired youngster Garang Kuol from the Australian K-League only to instantly loan him out to Scottish side Hearts for the second half of the season.

Minteh, although arriving from a European nation and club in Denmark’s Odense, will seemingly follow the same developmental path with his chances at making the first-team of Newcastle very limited, and thus blocked from taking on a solid role next season as the current roster of the Magpies stands.

Romano also added that the medical tests are already booked and that Newcastle are only “waiting on the work permit issue to be resolved” so they can complete and make the deal official.

Craig Hope of the Daily Mail also echoed the deal between Newcastle and Odense for the young winger on Friday morning. Hope quotes the fee to be paid for the 18-year-old winger at “around £6m,” with the player arriving from OB Odense of the Danish Superliga having scored two goals and assisted three through nine games in the competition.

OB Odense of the Danish top-flight division—Minteh’s current club—shouldn’t be mistaken for KV Oostende, the organization in which Newcastle’s owners from Saudi Arabia (PIF) are seemingly interested in acquiring shares as we reported back in April, which got relegated from Belgium’s Jupiler League to the second division this season.