Newcastle United, the Sky Bet Championship promotion favourites, have joined the growing list of clubs linked with a potential swoop for Huddersfield Town’s Bermudian ace, Nahki Wells.

According to English media reports, Newcastle are keen to pay Huddersfield as much as £8 million for the striker, who scored the opening goal in his team’s 2-1 upset away to Rafael Benítez’s side at St James’ Park at the weekend.

It was Wells’s first goal of the season and arrived on his league season debut after missing a considerable amount of Huddersfield’s preseason preparations as well as the opening two fixtures of the 2016-17 campaign through knee injury.

“I couldn’t ask for anymore, to be able to score in a match like that was fantastic,” said Wells, following his team’s first win at Newcastle in 63 years.

The Yorkshire Post reported that Newcastle are keen on bolstering their attacking options after scoring just one goal in their opening two matches, with Wells and Fernando Forestieri, of Sheffield Wednesday, among those on their radar.

Newcastle are believed to be ready to ramp up their reported interest in the Bermuda international, who has bagged 40 goals since joining Huddersfield from Bradford City for £1.3m in January 2014.

Norwich City, Fulham and Derby County are among the other clubs reported to be interested in signing the 26-year old Wells before the transfer deadline expires on August 31.

On the eve of his team’s Championship clash today away to Aston Villa, David Wagner, the Huddersfield head coach, shrugged off the latest transfer speculation over Wells, choosing instead to reflect on the striker’s goalscoring return from injury at the weekend.

“We were all happy to see Nahki back in action,” Wagner said. “He was always in line for some minutes at Newcastle, but the decision to start with him developed the day before the game.

“He has missed some of preseason because of his [knee] injury, so we all know he has still to get back some fitness, but I could see from his body language in training that he was keen to get back.

“It was great that he was able to work within our system and great that he got his goal, and this lifted him at a stage when he was starting to look a little bit tired, something which was totally normally given the lack of minutes in his legs beforehand.”

Wells, who scored against Villa during his stint with Bradford City in the first leg of the 2012-13 League Cup semi-final, has been included in Wagner’s squad for today’s match.

“While Nahki needs to get fitter, he looks strong, confident and focused, so we must decide for how many minutes he can help us against Aston Villa, which will be another testing game for us,” Wagner said.

Elsewhere today, Reggie Lambe’s Carlisle United are at home to Cheltenham in League Two, while Rai Simons’s Chesterfield are also at home to Walsall, in League One.

Lambe scored his second goal of the league campaign in Carlisle’s 1-0 home win over Plymouth Argyle at the weekend, while Simons was an unused sub in his side’s 3-1 home victory over Swindon Town.