Newcastle United players and a three year rule on leaving | OneFootball

It isn’t something that we have had to deal with so far when it comes to Newcastle United players, not under Eddie Howe anyway.

That is, the possibility of one of them leaving.

Plenty Newcastle United players have left of course these past three and a half years.

However, it has been always a case of Eddie Howe and the club wanting to do so, choosing to do so. Even the Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh exits, neither of them wanted to leave. It was the club that chose to sell them albeit due to PSR necessity.

It has been a nice comfort zone to be in, none of the best Newcastle United players.

For those who were around then, it is like when Kevin Keegan was in charge and the Sir Bobby Robson era as well, Newcastle United players didn’t want to leave NUFC. The only exception in Keegan’s time was maybe Andy Cole, although KK was the one who appeared to be the driving force in that one, with his cunning plan in place to bring in Les Ferdinand a few months later.

With Sir Bobby, we did see Jonathan Woodgate sign for Real Madrid, but in that case as well Newcastle didn’t really seem to try and keep him, a brilliant player but his injury issues no doubt playing a part in Sir Bobby’s/Newcastle’s acceptance of the transfer.

When it comes to Newcastle United players wanting to move to another club, as fans, what should we find acceptable?

I see it a bit like this if any Newcastle United players ask for a move now under Eddie Howe, it depends a lot on how long they have been here…

Totally unacceptable.

If Eddie Howe signs a player and after just 12 months they want to force a move elsewhere, that would be a shocker.

Didi Hamann did that back in the 90s and joined…Liverpool after one very decent season at United.

Jonathan Woodgate lasted 18 months before choosing to go to Real Madrid. The fact that he wasn’t able to play at all during his first season due to injury, made his departure a lot easier to bear.

Two years

I still think not enough. Unless there are special circumstances as to why a player would want to leave. Not that I can think of what those special circumstances would be to make it acceptable…

Obviously we are talking about first choice Newcastle United players. If any player isn’t getting a regular start then you can’t blame them if they want to get that elsewhere.

Three years

This is where it gets interesting, dare I say…acceptable.

If any Newcastle United players have played fair, given their all, then if they decide to move on after three seasons, then generally speaking, that is just football.

Look at all these great Eddie Howe signings and how long these Newcastle United players were at the clubs that Howe bought them from:

Sven Botman (two years at Lille), Anthony Elanga (two years at Forest), Bruno (two years at Lyon), Kieran Trippier (two and a half years at Atletico Madrid), Sandro Tonali (two years at AC Milan), Tino Livramento (two years at Southampton)…Alexander Isak (three years at Real Sociedad).

I think just a ‘little’ bit hypocritical for us as Newcastle United fans (the same as all other club fanbases!!!), if we find it perfectly acceptable to approach other clubs and take away key players they very often wanted to keep after they have only had them three years or even less, yet find it totally unacceptable if after a committed three years a player decides to move on from Newcastle United.

I would obviously be gutted if he did leave but if for whatever reason Bruno Guimaraes had decided to leave this summer after a brilliant three and a half years, I wouldn’t be thinking he had acted badly.

With say Sandro Tonali, he has been here two years, but with one of those a write off due to his previous actions whilst at AC Milan. I reckon he owes us at least another two years minimum to make it into three active seasons with NUFC, before I would think it acceptable if for whatever reason he wanted to move on elsewhere in summer 2027 or later

With players who were very young when we signed them and didn’t start regularly initially, who Eddie Howe massively developed, such as say Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall, I would say that especially as they have more time to go in their careers, the expectancy should be at least four years at St James’ Park where it would be seen as playing fair if they then decided to leave.

None of this is me wanting to see our best Newcastle United players leave, it is instead just an acceptance that players are bought and sold by all clubs and they must be in the minority now, when it comes to the better quality players staying four years or more at clubs these days.

Which brings me to Alexander Isak.

We have had three brilliant seasons from him, no complaints on that front.

We don’t know what exactly is going on but it is a total mess and Alexander Isak appears to be at least partly to blame for it.

If Liverpool or any other club had wanted to buy Alexander Isak, they should have made an approach at the end of last season.

If Alexander Isak had decided he wanted to leave this summer, then he should have made that clear at the end of last season. I suppose to be fair, maybe Isak did say that to Newcastle United back in May but was told they wouldn’t sell him this summer.

Now we have Liverpool using the media to do their dirty work and trying to unsettle Isak (and Newcastle United). It was mid-July when they got journalists to put out the message they would pay £120m for Alexander Isak and now we have ended up in this mess currently. Still not a single bid made by Liverpool or any other club and Eddie Howe having to deal with the fallout.

Alexander Isak has massively ticked the committed three year box at St James’ Park but if indeed he is to leave now, the way he is leaving isn’t ticking any kind of a box for Eddie Howe and the Newcastle fans.