Newcastle United preparing £20m bid for Sampdoria's Dennis Praet as Fulham chase Dwight Gayle

Rafael Benitez's side have reportedly been chasing a move for Praet for a number of months.

Newcastle United are reportedly readying a £20m ($25.8m) bid for Sampdoria attacker Denis Praet and may sell striker Dwight Gayle to Fulham in order to fund a deal for the talented Belgian.

According to SportItalia, as relayed by talkSPORT, Rafael Benitez's side have been interested in Praet for much of the summer transfer window and have already seen two bids for the former Anderlecht star rejected by the Serie A outfit.

Sampdoria do not seem to be willing to part with the 23-year-old playmaker, who only arrived in Genoa from Anderlecht for around €10m, but Newcastle are reportedly preparing a third offer for Praet, who has earned one cap for Belgium.

Despite Premier League clubs being seemingly awash with cash this summer, Benitez has not been able to spend as much as his rivals and has instead had to look for cut-price deals in a market where value for money is but a distant memory.

In order to raise the funds to purchase Praet, Newcastle may offload striker Dwight Gayle to Fulham, who submitted a £15m bid for the former Crystal Palace forward on Tuesday (29 August).

Slavisa Jokanovic's side have already signed strikers Rui Fonte and Aboubakar Kamara from Braga and Amiens respectively but have now registered their interest in Gayle as they attempt to strengthen their chances of promotion back to England's top-flight.

Fulham have denied that they have made any offer for Gayle, who scored 24 goals in just 34 appearances for Newcastle as they secured promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, but the west London outfit are in talks with the Magpies over a potential transfer for the 27-year-old, according to Sky Sports News.

Newcastle are reportedly hoping to receive around £20m for Gayle but will do business for around £18m. It remains to be seen if Fulham can shell out such an amount, though their coffers were swelled significantly by the sale of Sone Aluko, who joined Reading on Tuesday for £7.5m.