Newcastle in advanced talks to sign Ewen Jaouen - Report

The rumours around 20-year-old French goalkeeper Ewen Jaouen moving to Newcastle United aren't going away.

This month, we have seen reports claiming that Ewen Jaouen visited Newcastle and was close to agreeing a move to Tyneside.

That report was quickly rubbished by sources close to Newcastle. Indeed, it was refuted so quickly that we had to amend our article covering the story that he'd agreed to join to say that Newcastle had denied the claims within minutes of our story going live.

The story still refuses to go away, and now Mark Douglas of the iPaper has mentioned it in his latest article.

Ewen Jaouen is still on Newcastle's radar

It was The Chronicle which rubbished the initial claims of the talks earlier in the month, but they have now reported that the Magpies are advancing in talks with the goalkeeper's people.

They are keen to stress that no agreement has been reached as yet, despite reports from France claiming that the youngster is ready to sign. The iPaper also relayed those reports in an article on Wednesday.

Tottenham and Brighton are both monitoring Jaouen, but it sounds as though things are moving in the right direction for a move to Newcastle.

We're still not sure where the Stade Reims stopper would fit in Newcastle's hierarchy of goalkeepers, whatever that may look like next season.

Where would Ewen Jaouen fit in?

Reims are currently in Ligue 2, so the step up from the French second division to the Premier League seems like quite a big one and could be a huge risk for Newcastle.

That suggests to us that we are looking at other options as well as Jaouen, and he will come in as a backup to whoever is handed the Number 1 jersey next season.

There's a part of us that is panicking that Eddie Howe is going to stick with Nick Pope with a view to Jaouen taking over in the long term, but while there's still hope that there's a chance Newcastle will sign a new No.1, we don't want to think about that.