Across the media you will no doubt have heard how all the top Newcastle United stars will be leaving this summer.
Taken for granted that all of the club’s best players will leave.
The media message informing us that all of the Newcastle United stars want to leave Tyneside AND that it is inevitable that the club won’t be able to keep them.
Journalists and pundits talk like it is fact, that this will be just a continuation of what (supposedly) has been happening in recent years at St James’ Park.
That year after year following the takeover, the best Newcastle United stars have been desperate to leave and that this is what has (supposedly) inevitably come to pass.
I think that the media talk so often about how it is supposedly inevitable that the top Newcastle United stars are going to leave St James’ Park, they have now subconsciously convinced themselves that this has actually happened any number of times.
Every season since the Newcastle United takeover, we have had endless speculation on which of the best United players will leave in the next transfer window. Predictably, time after time naming the usual suspects as the Premier League clubs that will take away our best players to London and/or the North West.
Across the first nine transfer windows under Eddie Howe and these NUFC owners, how many of the top Newcastle United stars have wanted to leave AND ended up joining another club?
Obviously there has been a lot of speculation about the best Newcastle United players wanting out and for sure to sign for new clubs…
Obviously as well, almost all of this speculation having been invented by the media and repeated by the rest of them endlessly!
Obviously though….in these previous nine transfer windows, the number of Newcastle United players who have wanted to leave and joined another club, is precisely ONE!
No prizes for naming him, as the rat dominated the entire summer of 2025, providing the media with what they wanted.
The media and fans can all endlessly speculate about what players are thinking, what they supposedly want to do, clubs they are desperate to leave, clubs they are desperate to join.
However, all we have is that inconvenient thing to really go on, you know, reality. What has actually happened.
Alexander Isak the only player who in the first nine transfer windows under Eddie Howe and these NUFC owners, decided that he wanted to leave Newcastle United AND then joined another club.
He is the only one, nobody else, ahead of this current summer 2026 window.
Neither Elliot Anderson nor Yankuba Minteh wanted to leave Newcastle United, the club hierarchy forced them out to cover the financial shortfall caused by their incompetence. A PSR crisis that developed during the time Amanda Staveley (who was paid to do so by the Newcastle United owners via a management contract) and CEO Darren Eales were running the club.
All of the other Newcastle United players who have left during this Eddie Howe era, it has been the manager’s choice, the club’s choice, not the player forcing it.
How many times have we been told that other Newcastle United stars are leaving for sure? The likes of Bruno Guimaraes, Tino Livramento, Lewis Hall, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali?
Yet, they are still at St James’ Park. Others such as Miley and Joelinton have also been supposedly set to leave, there were even claims Malick Thiaw would be forcing his way out in the January 2026 window only months after joining NUFC, due to what a success he had proved under Eddie Howe and getting back into the Germany squad (and then going to play at the World Cup finals).
Anthony Gordon
No doubt many of you reading this will be shouting…”Well what about Anthony Gordon???”
Yes I was aware that he had left Newcastle United.
However, that is very different to what we have witnessed across those previous nine transfer windows.
We knew long long before the 2025/26 season ended, that Anthony Gordon was going to be leaving.
The club made absolutely clear that they were intending to sell the former Everton player, they gave permission for his representatives to very publicly discuss a summer move with other clubs. This all started months ago and by the time the 2025/26 season ended, we all knew Gordon was leaving.
This was a deal that suited all parties, in my opinion. The player keen to ‘explore’ his options if certain clubs showed interest, though no indication at all that he was demanding out at all costs and forcing the club to let him go. Instead it was a case of long in advance of summer 2026 NUFC deciding to sell him, a conscious decision that he would be a player that it would make sense to sell to allow more expansive spending on new signings this summer than would otherwise have been the case.
We didn’t see this with any of the other Newcastle United stars in the final weeks and months of the 2025/26 season.
Then since the season ended, apart from the finalising of the Anthony Gordon move to Barcelona, all we have seen otherwise is the usual endless media speculation claiming all of the remaining Newcastle United stars are going to leave. Exactly as we saw every previous season and yet only Alexander Isak left across those years, so why should we believe this summer’s endless speculation should be any different?
This Newcastle United squad has already been stripped down to a serious extent.
Last season, Newcastle United didn’t have anywhere near a big enough squad and now we have seen those numbers further diminished by the departures of Gordon, Ruddy, Ramsdale and Trippier, as well as Targett who spent last season out on loan. Only goalkeeper Ewen Jaouen having come in so far.
We all surely know by now that journalists are going to write these stories of Newcastle United stars wanting to leave and the club going to be forced to sell them, regardless of whether or not there is any truth behind the claims.
I think we massively rely on our very best players to a large extent, carry the rest of the team, the likes of Bruno Guimaraes, Lewis Hall, Tino Livramento and Sandro Tonali when playing to anything like their best, helping to cover up the fact that many other individuals who get regular football are nowhere near the same level.
Selling a Bruno or Tonali, I just can’t see it.
You then instantly have a huge (extra!) hole to fill and I would say arguably you have to bring in at least two or three players across the team/squad to offset the loss of one of that pair’s quality. I just don’t think there is any indication that the club are seeing this as plan, to sell one (or both!) of our key midfielders as all the media want us to believe.
Obviously we are seeing journalists claiming this is the case but it feels nothing like the Anthony Gordon situation to me.
My belief is that before the season ended , Eddie Howe and Ross Wilson have spoken to all the key Newcastle United stars and found out their situations, checking they were still totally committed to playing next season. No way would they have invited a situation like the Alexander Isak one. We aren’t going to have any NUFC player going on strike and all that nonsense, I think all parties agreed on Gordon going, with all of the other key United stars committing.
Maybe one or more of the best Newcastle United players will leave in summer 2026, or maybe they won’t. One thing for certain though. When the media go on like it is a foregone conclusion due to what has happened in the past under Eddie Howe, it is simply not based on reality.
We are now only two weeks away from the players coming back to the training ground to begin pre-season preparations and then only a further six weeks away after than until the season actually kicks off.
You can come back at a later date to tell me how clueless and naive I have been with what I’ve written above but my opinion is that we won’t see any further first choice players (who are guaranteed to start if fully fit) leave this summer. Instead, my belief is that the transfer activity will be overwhelmingly incoming, with only maybe the odd squad player such as Joe Willock leaving.