Newcastle have a built-in aversion to losing key players. But can this pain become a gain?

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They know there can be no repeat of last summer’s Alexander Isak saga, which earned great money but caused greater destabilisation, the effects of which are still rippling out. This feels like a big psychological hurdle for Newcastle to jump because, as a club, they still have a built-in aversion to losing players. Older supporters wince at the memory of Peter Beardsley and Paul Gascoigne — the “crown jewels” — leaving Tyneside in the 1980s. In 2011, after long insisting he was not for sale, Andy Carroll moved to Liverpool for £35million, then a British record fee, shortly before the January deadline. They were a stepping-stone, a selling club. Since their Saudi-led takeover in 2021, Newcastle’s outlook has been transformed. They have designs on regularly competing for every major trophy by 2030, a target set by David Hopkinson, their chief executive, and to do that, they need to buy and build around great players. They are no longer a selling club in the traditional, belittling sense of the phrase, but they do need to sell and, being frank, they have regularly been terrible at it. Not long after Bruno Guimaraes arrived at Newcastle in January 2022 for £40m, a senior executive at the club spoke privately to The Athletic about recruitment strategy — like others quoted in this piece, they were not authorised to do so in public. The scenario was hypothetical, but if Guimaraes was as good as they thought, the team progressed, and they doubled their money on him, which they could then reinvest, then it was job done. The problem is, this has never happened in a controlled environment. “Going forward, our strategy is to buy well and sell well,” Hopkinson told reporters when Newcastle revealed their annual financial results, which is hardly a contentious statement, but it represented another attempt to recalibrate expectations regarding the club’s trading model. The importance of selling is yet to cut through the perception of Newcastle having the richest owners in the world, a moniker which is largely meaningless. Football’s financial restrictions hem in upwardly mobile clubs, while Newcastle are playing catch-up in commercial and marketing, which means that canny trading is a necessary evil. Among some at the club, there is “surprise” that the idea of moving players on prompts such a visceral head-loss on Gallowgate when it is totally normal in the modern game and a reality for every club, ambitious or otherwise. Yet Newcastle’s recent experience of it has been jarring and scarring. In early summer 2024, after a bout of overspending prompted at least in part by the team’s rapid ascent to the Champions League, they were contemplating a double-figure points deduction for breaching the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR). They sold Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh for a combined £60m, which was simultaneously a requirement and a damaging act. Minteh, a young Gambia international, had never played for Newcastle but he was a right winger, a position Eddie Howe was desperate to strengthen; he has since made 59 Premier League appearances for Brighton & Hove Albion, scoring eight goals. Far more damaging was Anderson, a Geordie midfielder of huge technical quality, who joined Nottingham Forest. He is now being linked with both Manchester clubs, with a value of anywhere up to £100m. Isak was worse. In March last year, Darren Eales, Hopkinson’s predecessor, told journalists it would be “crazy” to sell leading talents like the Sweden striker. This was precisely what Newcastle did, resisting Liverpool during a long, sapping summer when Isak effectively went on strike and then finally buckling for £125m. It was a British-record fee but not on their terms, and the club reinvested in a climate of panic. On the pitch, what followed has been a struggle. Can Newcastle become good sellers? For the record, they do not want to lose their stellar individuals, but they do have to be prepared for it and to respond accordingly. At some stage, everybody does it. Here are a few salient talking points. In the first place, because they’re damn good. Sandro Tonali was already an established Italy international when he joined Newcastle, but Howe has repeatedly demonstrated he can develop and improve players, whether from a higher or lower base. There are few teams, in the Premier League or elsewhere, which Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon, Tino Livramento or Lewis Hall, to name a few, would not enhance. Yet this question also reflects a marked uptick in speculation linking those players with moves away. As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. Newcastle are no longer in the Champions League and no longer look likely to be playing there next season, which potentially leaves them vulnerable to rivals, particularly if those players or their representatives now view Europe’s leading competition as their natural habitat. Then there is what happened with Isak, which Howe always feared might set a precedent. Ultimately, the striker got his way — burning every bridge as he did so — forcing his departure to a club that could afford to pay him far more in wages. After a series of early, high-profile rejections in the transfer market, it calcified the impression that Newcastle do not yet have elite status, even if a smattering of their players do. Salaries and the club’s cachet continue to be factors. This is a suggestion that has been fuelled by Beppe Riso, Tonali’s agent, who told reporters in Italy recently that it was “very likely” his client would move this summer, with Arsenal and both Manchester clubs all interested in the midfielder over the last 12 months. Riso also said: “Everyone is waiting for the World Cup – then a thousand scenarios will unfold,” although this is no longer a consideration given Italy’s failure to qualify for the finals. Senior figures at Newcastle regard this, for now, as fluff and noise and of limited relevance. There has been firm and widespread pushback at reports that there is a gentleman’s agreement that Tonali can leave, while Howe has spoken about their tight relationship. In any case, they know that any deal would be complicated by his 10-month suspension for betting offences shortly after his arrival in England. He is also essentially under contract until 2030. There is also recognition, however, that Tonali would be difficult to replace, perhaps more so than Gordon or Livramento, for example. While Gordon’s versatility and ability to play in a central-forward position are valuable assets, there will be other wide players on the market, but Tonali’s quality, skill set and engine mark him out as unique. The key is that they respond coherently and quickly to interest, should it come. On the subject of Gordon, Newcastle have been down this road before. Before Anderson and Minteh were jettisoned, the England international was close to joining Liverpool. “It didn’t happen,” he told reporters last year. “I had to get my head around that to begin with and then to get my head around it again was hard.” Granted, he has scored 17 goals in all competitions this season, but has he been the same player since? Do Newcastle want to go through that again? “I don’t even know how to respond to that. It is a waste of my energy,” Howe said at a pre-match press conference last month when reports emerged that Manchester United were in “advanced talks” with the Brazilian. Guimaraes is Newcastle’s captain and heartbeat, but when a time-limited £100m release clause in his contract became active in June 2024, no club attempted to activate it. Guimaraes is 29 this year and is under contract until 2028. In an ideal world, sources say Newcastle would want him to stay, and an extended deal is under active consideration. Of course, if a club comes in for him and Livramento is minded to go. Manchester City had Livramento high on their list in summer 2024, while other leading Premier League clubs are interested in the right-back who, like Guimaraes, is contracted until 2028. Yet Livramento is only 23 and, to date, there has been no public discussion of an extension, which puts Newcastle in a delicate position. There are also other considerations, such as Livramento’s chequered fitness record. Not exactly, but they are also “plugged into reality.” By the time Isak went, Newcastle did not have a working chief executive — Eales was on medical leave — or any sporting director following Paul Mitchell’s untimely departure. Their messaging had been mixed. Isak was officially not for sale — until the moment he was sold — maximising disruption to Howe’s pre-season preparations and minimising the club’s ability to thoughtfully address replacing him. “For me, one of two things had to happen,” a person with knowledge of the situation says. “You have to go really early or you stick.” Newcastle did neither, and although they ended up prising a bigger fee out of Liverpool, the question there is: at what cost? Hopkinson described Isak as “a good sale,” this week, which, in a purely economic sense, it was. As to what came next? Bad business, which makes it a bad deal. With Ross Wilson now in situ as Mitchell’s successor, Newcastle have greater protection. Right price, right time, right opportunity; these are the absolutely vital bits. As Hopkinson also explained, “We haven’t got an overall strategy with regards players out, necessarily. We think through what players might or might not want to do this summer. “But if an Isak-like scenario presents itself again, any player under contract is going to leave on our terms, and we’re going to maximise the opportunity that might represent for the club.” Not because they would be in trouble otherwise, but yes, in that this must become part of their existence. Hopkinson was asked whether Newcastle could afford a “box-office” signing this summer, and he replied in the affirmative, providing they sold. The Premier League’s new squad-cost rules (SCR) will mean a shift in approach where juggling wages becomes as important as bringing in big fees. To a greater or lesser extent, all clubs have to do this, but getting it right more often, being smarter, becomes more pronounced at Newcastle because of the advantage the Premier League’s legacy ‘Big Six’ clubs have in earning revenue. There are high hopes that under Steve Harper’s leadership, the club’s academy will become a more regular source of first-team players, whether for Newcastle or to be sold to others, but both of these things take time. Whether they have European competition to look forward to will have an impact on incomings and outgoings. In the early days post-takeover, it felt like Newcastle had a 100 per cent hit rate in the transfer market. What they can do now — and must do — is become equally adept at selling. Losing Isak hurt like hell, and it has unquestionably made Howe’s team weaker, but it should never have been this damaging. Circumstances, perhaps even the law of averages, strongly point to at least one big player leaving this summer, and quite possibly more. Given their history, it is not easy to be relaxed about the prospect. But every club is now a selling club, and Newcastle must turn their pain into an art form. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms