Newcastle in talks with Lamine Camara - Fabrizio Romano

Newcastle United is stepping up its transfer plans as the season winds down.

The Magpies play their final home game of the season today when West Ham comes to St James' Park. It will be the last time some players step out onto the hallowed turf as Newcastle players.

Wor Flags have a tribute planned for Kieran Trippier, who will be leaving at the end of the season, and we're sure a few other players who are expected to leave will get their own tributes too.

While we prepare to lose several players, behind the scenes, Ross Wilson and his team are working on finding replacements and additions to come in during the summer trading period to bolster the squad ahead of next season.

Newcastle open talks with Lamine Camara

Newcastle have reportedly held an interest in AS Monaco's Lamine Camara for a while, and according to Fabrizio Romano, there has been movement on an approach of late.

The Italian transfer journalist has taken to X to claim that talks have already taken place between Newcastle and Camara.

"Newcastle have genuine interest in Lamine Camara while there are more clubs tracking AS Monaco midfielder. Initial talks already took place."

Ross Wilson is moving forward

Last week, it emerged that Liverpool were ready to join the race for Lamine Camara, so Newcastle will have to act fast if they want to snap up the 22-year-old ahead of the Reds.

It certainly feels like the interest in Camara is genuine. It's a link that has been doing the rounds for a while. As for whether talks have actually taken place, that's hard to tell. How many times have we heard reports of talks taking place recently, only for them to be rubbished?

We also know that Fabrizio Romano isn't above posting something like this on behalf of one of his agent friends to root out other interested clubs. So we'll wait and see.

However, the time is getting nearer, so it would make sense that Wilson is making more concrete moves as the club really needs to act quickly in the window this year. Eddie Howe has spoken about the importance of doing business early every year, and the club has let him down in that regard every year. Can Ross Wilson buck the trend?