‘9.5’: National media are raving about £35m Newcastle target at the World Cup, say he was almost perfect

Add as preferred source on Google

Newcastle United’s first team are currently training in Saudi Arabia ahead of the Premier League restarting.

However, they’ll likely have one eye on what’s going on in nearby Qatar at the World Cup.

The Portuguese media were clearly impressed with last night’s performance, and a Newcastle United target in particular.

Portugal recorded the biggest win of the knockout stages so far, with a 6-1 victory over Switzerland.

The biggest talking point was expected to be manager Fernando Santos dropping Cristiano Ronaldo to the bench.

The forward’s exclusion was completely overshadowed by the emergence of his replacement.

Goncalo Ramos announced himself to the World Cup and the footballing world with a sensational hat-trick.

The Benfica forward has previously been valued at £35m, although that number is now likely to increase.

Newcastle were linked with the 21-year-old in the summer, as were Premier League rivals Wolves.

Instead, Swedish forward Alexander Isak arrived at St. James’ Park, but injury has hampered his start to life on Tyneside.

Brighton are now reportedly in talks with Ramos, but a number of bigger sides may now have an eye on the Portuguese.

Newcastle target Ramos puts in sensational World Cup performance

Portuguese outlet Globo Esporte were understandably very impressed with Ramos.

They gave the young forward a 9.5 out of 10 rating, and said: “The world’s eyes were on the striker, whose mission was to replace Cristiano Ronaldo, who started the World Cup match on the bench for the first time in history

“And he didn’t feel the pressure at all. He opened the scoring for the Portuguese after 16 minutes of play.

“With a lot of movement, he scored the second in the game, right at the beginning of the second half, and gave a pass to Guerreiro’s goal.

“He left with 27 minutes left for CR7 to enter. Grade: 9.5.”

It was noticeable that Ramos offered a lot more running and energy to Portugal when they didn’t have possession.

All three of Ramos’ goals required different types of finishes, and he executed each one perfectly.

The power with which he struck his first goal was incredible, and gave Yann Sommer no chance at his near post.

Ramos now looks set to start Portugal’s World Cup quarter-final against Morocco.

Newcastle will get to take another close look at the forward, and could end up deciding to go in for him again in January.