Eddie Howe breaks silence on Newcastle United’s fourth summer signing in ‘priority position’

A deal worth up to £35million was announced by Newcastle for the 20-year-old right-back. After training at Darsley Park for the first time this week, Livramento is set to be named on the bench in the Premier League opener against Aston Villa.

And Howe is excited about his latest arrival.

“There’s a lot to like, he’s very athletic, very quick, dynamic and got a really good endurance level so he’ll be box-to-box,” said the United head coach. “Technically he’s very good and at a great age but he’s obviously back after a long injury.”

Despite Livramento playing just two Premier League matches for Southampton last season after suffering an ACL injury, Howe has no concerns regarding the player’s fitness.

“He’s done all of pre-season so far with Southampton so he’s in really good physical condition,” he added. “We’ve watched all of his pre-season games so that [injury] just needs to be taken into context and we’ll need to look after, him but he’s a really exciting player

“He’s fully fit and he’s training, there’s no issues there. It’s more for us to be mindful of his load and all things that come with signing a new player, changing training, intensity, all of those things are really important things that we’re trying to get right.

“He’s already impressed greatly in training this week so the signs are good.”

Although Newcastle have four contracted right-backs heading into the new season, Howe denied the suggestion that Livramento wasn’t a ‘priority’ signing.

“[Emil Krafth] has been out for a long-long time so we looked at our situation,” Howe continued. “Javier Manquillo is currently injured so we have four contracted right-backs but only two who are fit and available and one of them is Tino.

“It was a priority position for us and an area that we needed to strengthen.

Hopefully he can play different roles. I think he’s played left-back before and I think naturally most right-backs can move over to the other side - it’s more difficult for left-backs it seems.

“I think he could possibly play wide for us as well but we’ll predominantly use him as a right back, that will be his primary position.”