Bruno Guimarães completes £75m move to Arsenal
Bruno Guimarães completed a £75m transfer from Newcastle to Arsenal at the Emirates on 8 August 2026, signing a four-year contract with a further one-year option and saying “I needed a new challenge in my life.”
The 29-year-old joined the Premier League champions after Newcastle reluctantly agreed to sell their captain; he had led the Magpies to the Carabao Cup last year, the club’s first trophy since 1955. Arsenal are reported to have courted Guimarães previously in 2020 when he was at Athletico Paranaense and again 18 months later while he was with Lyon, before his move to Newcastle.
Guimarães said his decision was influenced by early conversations with Arsenal’s management, telling Arsenal’s website: “Since the first time I spoke to Berta and Mikel, I was excited. I just felt inside of me that I need a new challenge in my life and I think to be an Arsenal player is going to be an exciting challenge in my life.”
He added: “After playing two World Cups, I’m at the point of my life, I need a challenge like this. I want to win trophies, I want to make history and I think I’m in the right place to do it. I’m so excited to start. We have tough games to play this season, so the squad is going to be very, very important and I’m hopeful we can achieve our dreams.”
Arsenal’s sporting director Andrea Berta said the signing strengthens the club’s midfield and praised Guimarães’ versatility, saying: “We are further strengthening the heart of our team. As we have all seen, Bruno can play as a defensive midfielder and as a box-to-box player. He combines quality with quantity, and has provided goals and assists for his team every year. Bruno will allow Mikel to further develop our playing style and will also increase our internal competitiveness, which is essential for maintaining the standards required when we are aiming to win major trophies.”
Arsenal’s midfield group now includes Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard, Martin Zubimendi, Mikel Merino and Myles Lewis-Skelly, a cohort Guimarães described in positive terms after joining. He said: “I was happy he messaged me, but the midfield we have here, in my point of view, is one of the best in Europe. Everyone is an amazing player, I’m so excited to start chatting and play, and know the players very, very well, but we have an amazing midfield.” He also revealed a welcome from Rice that read: “come here and please no more fights, now we’re friends”.
Guimarães issued a farewell message to Newcastle in which he described his departure as “one of the toughest decisions of my life”. It read: “I fell in love with this place. I really mean that. From my first day, the supporters, my teammates, Eddie and the staff, and everyone connected with the club made me and my family feel at home. “This is one of the toughest decisions of my life. When I arrived, the club was in a challenging position and I am incredibly proud of what we achieved together. I thank PIF, our chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Jamie Reuben for everything they have done for me and for this football club. I also want to say thank you to David and Ross for the huge respect to me throughout this process. They did everything they could to keep me at Newcastle, and I am very grateful for our time together.”
On Friday Newcastle’s sporting director Ross Wilson said the club had effectively been left with no alternative but to permit the move, stating: “What we had to weigh up was, very respectfully from Bruno with his behaviour towards us, very emotionally as well, he effectively told us he wanted to leave and move on. That doesn’t mean he can go, but it certainly plays a part in what our thinking is when we hit a certain range of number. There’s no part in saying it was part of our strategy and was in our thinking this summer - it wasn’t. But we have got to be flexible and react to things that happen.”