21-year-old Newcastle star now wants new contract amid baffling reports of swap deal - Craig Hope

Something strange is going on at Newcastle United today with two top-quality young players heavily linked with departures from the club.

Yankuba Minteh's future has been a constant source of speculation since the season ended with rumours of several clubs circling with a view to taking him away from Newcastle.

The most recent being a double deal with Everton whereby Newcastle buy Dominic Calvert-Lewin and they buy Yankuba MInteh. A double deal to get around the wonderful world of FFP/PSR.

Those dreaded acronyms are also likely responsible for the other rumour that Elliot Anderson was offered up as part of a player plus cash deal for Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Max Kilman.

PSR is ruining the game in new spectacular ways

Because of those stupid Profit and Sustainability Rules so many clubs are looking at selling promising youngsters this summer to offset bigger purchases as players who come through the academy are pure profit, and for the buying club, a youth player doesn't count towards FFP, so all kinds of odd deals will be done this summer.

It's also because of PSR that Newcastle have to mess about with stupid bids for players they could easily afford outright without these restrictions in place.

There's no way, in a normal world, that Elliot Anderson would be used as a makeweight in a deal for a defender.

Craig Hope says Elliot Anderson is hoping to start talks over a new contract

Fortunately, since that report came out, Craig Hope has said that Elliot Anderson has no intention of leaving St James' Park and is actively seeking a new deal at the club.

It makes much more sense to us to keep Anderson around, he's a homegrown talent with bags of potential.

Why didn't we offer Sean Longstaff or Miguel Almiron to Wolves? At least they're players on the cusp of leaving this summer anyway. The whole thing makes no sense. Today has been weird.