Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United are set to appoint Manchester City’s Paul McLaren as their new head of scouting, according to journalist Fabrizio Romano on Twitter.

McLaren joined Manchester City in September 2017, according to his Linkedin page. During his time at club, City brought in world-class talents such Erling Haaland, Ruben Dias and Jack Grealish to the club. He also spent two years at Arsenal before this, as a head youth scout, from 2015-2017.

In Romano’s tweet, he wrote: “Understand Newcastle United are set to appoint Paul Mclaren as new Head of Scouting — he’s gonna leave Manchester City where he’s young scout. Mclaren is likely to start his new job at Newcastle in July.”

During his playing career, McLaren played primarily for teams in the EFL, such as Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United and Bradford City.

Since the takeover led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund in 2021, Newcastle’s recruitment has been nothing short of fantastic. In that timeframe, they’ve signed excellent talents such as Bruno Guimaraes, Sven Botman and Nick Pope.

The addition of an experienced scout such as McLaren can only be a good thing – the Toon could be on course for an extremely fruitful summer transfer window.

Newcastle are actually set to play Manchester City very soon – they will take on the Citizens in their next Premier League fixture on Saturday, March 4.

The Toon are currently fifth in the Premier League table, just below the likes of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur and just above Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.