Elliot Anderson still wouldn’t get into this Newcastle United team – Simple reality | OneFootball

Elliot Anderson was one of the top headline makers of the summer 2024 Newcastle United transfer window.

The club getting into a PSR mess and June 2024 needing to see more than £50m extra revenue needing to be brought in that month before the financial year end.

Players who have come through the ranks and not having had a transfer fee spent on them, are sadly those that give the biggest instant PSR boost. Elliot Anderson was sold to Nottingham Forest for a reported £35m.

With Yankuba Minteh sold to Brighton as well, for a reported £33m, having signed only a year earlier for around £7m.

These two deals produced enough instant profit that could be included in the 2023/24 accounts, to keep Newcastle United on the right side of the PSR.

Elliot Anderson has taken full advantage of the move, starting 33 Premier League matches last season for Forest and off the bench in another four. Forest getting back into Europe and the former Newcastle player also helped his new club reach Wembley and an FA Cup semi-final which they lost to Man City.

Nottingham Forest haven’t started well but Elliot Anderson has arguably still gone from strength to strength with his individual form, starting all seven Premier League matches this season so far and two Europa League games.

To top it all off, Anderson’s form getting him into the England team, with many people now seeing him as undroppable now for the national side.

I have seen plenty of Newcastle United fans calling this a disaster for the club, losing Elliot Anderson.

The truth is a little more complicated.

In an ideal world, of course a homegrown talent such as Elliot Anderson would still be at St James’ Park.

However, I think at the same time a lot of Newcastle United fans who are going way over the top on this on social media and suchlike, aren’t been totally honest.

If he hadn’t been sold, Elliot Anderson would still not be getting into this Newcastle United team.

He only started 13 Premier League matches for Newcastle United and how many more would he have got last season?

Bruno Guimaraes started all 38 Premier League matches, Joelinton started all 29 PL games he was available for. Whilst once Sandro Tonali got fully up to speed he was first choice week after week in the Premier League.

The Newcastle United midfield is the same this season, Eddie Howe wanting that same trio on the pitch whenever possible in the Premier League.

If Elliot Anderson had stayed, would anything have changed for him?

Next month he turns 23 and he would have remained a squad player for NUFC.

It doesn’t mean he isn’t a good player, just one with three midfielders still ahead of him.

The other thing is…

If not going to Forest and getting regular football and a chance to show what he could do, there would then have been no England call up if staying at Newcastle United.

It is always the same for young emerging players at top clubs, getting enough playing opportunities.

The biggest tragedy in the whole thing is that the Newcastle United owners and senior staff had allowed such a mess to develop with PSR, that they weren’t in any position to insist on an advantageous buyback clause for Elliot Anderson, when selling him to Forest.

Good luck to the lifelong Newcastle United fan who is now heading to next summer’s World Cup finals.

Maybe one day we will still see him back in a Newcastle shirt…