Newcastle United battle Rangers and Aston Villa for teenage forward, Bruce expects first team player to leave

That’s according to Toon boss Steve Bruce, who is facing a bit of a goalkeeping crisis at the moment.

Woodman has been heavily linked with a move away from Tyneside this summer, but with Karl Darlow also testing positive for Covid, the Magpies chief has suggested that the youngster could be kept around.

“Martin picked up a foot injury with his country (Slovakia) at the Euros, and is having an operation,” he said.

“We’ll not know how bad that is (until later today).

"Karl Darlow, unfortunately, picked up Covid. So we felt it best that the people who were close to him, i.e. during dinner, self-isolate, so we pulled them out of the group.

"The group has been tested for the last three days. Thankfully everybody else is negative. It shows you we’re not immune to it. We’ve tried our utmost, but it still lingers around, which is difficult to manage.

“Well, we'll not know the extent of the operation with Dubravka (until later today).

"He picked up something similar last pre-season, running in the woods. He complained of it during the Championships, so we'll not know until the next 24 to 48 hours, and then we'll see how long he's out and what we need to do.

“I understand Freddie will be a little bit disappointed at this moment, but I've got to do what's best for Newcastle, and I'll always do that. The club comes first."

We’ve gathered the best of today’s Premier League transfer speculation below...