At the club where Valentino Lazaro was considered a wunderkind, there was always an expectation that the explosive winger would one day play in England.

“Tino will fit into the Premier League very well given his skills,” Christoph Freund, Red Bull Salzburg’s sporting director, tells The Athletic. “He is very fast, powerful and technically gifted. He has all the requirements to perform in the best and most intense league.”

Lazaro, who speaks fluent English, is still only 23 but he has already played in three countries, won five league titles and played for Austria 28 times. He remains an unpolished talent in many respects, yet he is precisely the profile of signing Steve Bruce hoped to make during this January transfer window.

Although the Newcastle United head coach craved reinforcements, he has remained steadfast that only players who would improve his first XI would be brought in.

On the evidence of Saturday’s dire goalless FA Cup draw with League One visitors Oxford United – as well as that gathered across a season during which Newcastle’s style has felt unsustainable – Lazaro’s dynamism is desperately needed.

While fellow loan recruit Nabil Bentaleb made his debut at the base of a three-man midfield against Oxford, Lazaro was only permitted a watching brief. Bruce had hoped to play him in the tie but it is understood parent club Inter Milan failed to submit their paperwork for the loan, which contains a reported £20 million option to purchase, by the Friday 12pm registration deadline.

Head of sports science Jamie Harley did put Lazaro through some fitness drills on the St James’ Park pitch ahead of the game, though, before the winger watched the match from the directors’ box. He sat just a few seats to the left of managing director Lee Charnley and Justin Barnes, owner Mike Ashley’s trusted aide, both of whom were present on a day when reports of a Saudi Arabia led-investor group’s interest in acquiring the club leaked out.

Lazaro spent much of the game chatting with head of recruitment Steve Nickson, who played an influential role in bringing him to the club. Newcastle’s scouting team are believed to have followed Lazaro’s progress for at least 18 months and, once it became clear Inter would let him to go this month, Nickson set about convincing the player’s entourage that Tyneside should be his destination.

Indeed, there are those in recruitment circles who believe Newcastle have pulled off something of a coup given Lazaro’s reputation – he was described by Bundesliga.com in 2019 as “the biggest Austrian talent in Germany since David Alaba” – and the competition they faced for his signature. West Ham United, Brighton & Hove Albion, Bologna and two German clubs, including Bundesliga leaders RB Leipzig, all courted Lazaro. Leipzig’s recruitment is lauded across Europe due to the fact they rarely make mistakes in the market.

Lazaro’s agent, Max Hagmayr, met Leipzig and held what had been described as “positive” discussions. But Hagmayr struck up a rapport with Charnley and Bruce during a visit to Tyneside earlier this month — it is also believed Inter also preferred Newcastle’s overall offer to Leipzig’s. Nickson offered him a tour of St James’ Park before Hagmayr took in last weekend’s dramatic stoppage-time victory over Chelsea, which he glowingly referenced when reporting back to Lazaro.

“There were talks for quite a long time,” Lazaro told NUFC TV. “It was not an easy decision whether I would to go to England – and if so, to which club – or Germany, or if I would stay in Milan and keep fighting for my chance. It was the great conversations that convinced me. I’ve only heard good things.”

The priority for Lazaro, following a frustrating six-month spell at the San Siro, was game-time ahead of Euro 2020. Privately, Lazaro has been assured by Bruce that he has the potential to be a first-team regular, although exactly how he will be deployed remains to be seen.

Lazaro’s versatility means he is comfortable playing anywhere down the right or as a No 10. While he is primarily expected to play either as a wing-back or part of the forward line, the prospect of covering at wing-back on the left if necessary is believed to have been discussed.

Austria mostly use Lazaro as a right-winger, the position he usually played during his formative years at Salzburg between 2012 and 2017. But, during his two-year spell with Hertha Berlin in Germany, Lazaro was converted into an offensive right wing-back and Inter recruited him as such.

Over the past two-and-a-half seasons, according to Understat, Lazaro has started 31 games as a midfielder or a forward and 22 as a wing-back or a defender. He has primarily been used on the right, but also through the middle and on the left.

“He is versatile but he played his best football at Hertha as a wing-back,” says Javier Caceres, a journalist who covered Lazaro’s successful two-year spell in Berlin. “He initially arrived as a winger but when Pal Dardai, the coach at the time, moved him to full-back, that’s when he really performed well. He plays in a very Brazilian style, like a lesser version of Marcelo. That’s what really caught Inter’s attention.”

Even those close to Lazaro struggle to determine his best position, although Bruce has described him as “an out-and-out wide player”. Lazaro will provide competition for DeAndre Yedlin and Javier Manquillo at wing-back and, should Bruce deploy the 3-5-2 formation he used against Oxford, the Austrian would bring much-needed width and purpose to a side that lacks both. He may even be of more value as an attacking option on the right, where he could ease the creative burden on Allan Saint-Maximin and Miguel Almiron, both of whom prefer to play on the left.

“Tino can play in several positions with his tactical cleverness,” Freund says of Lazaro, who puts his own dribbling skills down to the “street football” he enjoyed as a child. “Valentino has always been pacy and tricky in his play. We spotted him at as a 12-year-old playing for Grazer AK and signed him to the Salzburg academy at 14. He skipped several years and was promoted to the first team very quickly.”

So quickly, in fact, that he was the youngest player to feature for Salzburg when he made his debut at 16 years and 224 days.

Lazaro, born in Graz to a Greek mother and Angolan father — Pedro, who managed second tier Austrian club FC Gratkorn’s youth side, spent five seasons in his home country, winning 10 trophies and scoring the winner in a cup final victory over Rapid Vienna. After contributing 15 goals and 23 assists in 65 games, Hertha initially signed him on loan in 2017 before a £4 million permanent deal.

His athleticism and speed from full-back saw Lazaro emerge as one of the biggest prospects in the Bundesliga and he became the poster boy for a youthful and vibrant Hertha side. Last season, of the 175 full-backs across Europe’s top-five leagues to play more than 2,000 minutes, he was the fifth-most productive offensively in terms of expected assists, a metric used to measure the quality of chances created.

In 65 appearances, he provided five goals and 13 assists, becoming a crowd favourite at the Olympiastadion. However, he did receive criticism for posting on social media that he was taking a private jet back to Austria for Christmas in 2018 while wearing a £2,000 Gucci tracksuit, something which was viewed as arrogant by some supporters.

“That was the only incident with Lazaro, the rest was all positive,” Caceres said. “He’s quite reliable and versatile. I think it’s a very good deal for Newcastle. He’s very Austrian in the sense that he’s not only good at playing football, but also thinking about football.”

Newcastle watched Lazaro last season, but so did some of Europe’s top clubs. When Inter faced Rapid Vienna last February, the Serie A club held talks with Lazaro’s agent in Austria. Former coach Luciano Spalletti supported the recruitment of Lazaro, but Antonio Conte was in charge by the time they eventually finalised a £20 million deal.

Although the former Chelsea manager reassured Lazaro he was a key part of his plans, the wing-back suffered a thigh injury during pre-season in Singapore and missed three weeks of training. By the time he reached peak fitness, Inter had started the season well and Conte is known for rarely changing a winning team.

When Lazaro finally did get a chance in Serie A, he suffered a nightmare debut as a substitute against Sassuolo – he was partly at fault for two goals – and there was a feeling in Milan that Conte never entirely trusted him. Conte’s objective is to win the title this season and he has favoured the experience of 32-year-old Antonio Candreva, while both Ashley Young and Victor Moses have also just moved to Inter.

It is understood that both the player and Inter will revisit the situation in the summer, with neither party ruling out a reunion if he can rediscover his best form on Tyneside. Although there is an option to buy in the loan agreement, one source has suggested it cannot be unilaterally enacted by Newcastle.

Yet Lazaro has already spoken about creating a “long and successful story” at St James’ Park – and Newcastle believe they have acquired an electrifying talent on a low-risk loan deal. His integration is expected to be swifter than that of summer signing Joelinton, another former Bundesliga recruit, given the Austrian can immediately communicate efficiently with his team-mates thanks to his fluent English.

As the Oxford stalemate showed, Bruce’s side certainly require additional pace, invention and inspiration. If Lazaro can provide those crucial qualities over the next six months, he will be deemed a categorical success.