23-year-old Newcastle man to be offered new contract after unsettling summer

Newcastle United are now in damage limitation mode after a horrendous summer that saw players leave they wanted to keep and players they wanted staying put.

Not only that, but the club managed to unsettle their best player of last season by offering him out to a Premier League rival in a desperate bid to comply with PSR.

Anthony Gordon was offered to Liverpool as part of a quasi-swap deal that would have seen defender Joe Gomez come the other way.

This all happened while Gordon was in Germany with England getting his four minutes of game time as England made it to the final.

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Gordon's head was turned in the summer amid Liverpool interest

Reports suggested that the idea of joining Liverpool appealed to Gordon who was a Reds fan growing up, and that his head had been turned by the idea.

Eventually, Newcastle shifted on Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson and the Gordon deal was pulled, but what was done was done and Gordon was left wondering what might have been.

The pacey winger has looked far from his usual energetic self so far this season. It could be a case of a minimal break and being underutilised by England in the summer knocking his confidence. Or it could be that he still has one eye on that Liverpool move that never was.

Eddie Howe says Gordon's hectic summer is a big reason for his slow start to the season

iNews are reporting that the club are looking to open talks over a new contract with Anthony Gordon and in their report they ran quote from Eddie Howe around Gordon's early season fitness levels that goes some way to explaining things.

“Anthony has had an unusual summer by his standards. He had a long stretch at the Euros where he didn’t play so naturally I think that’s a long period without game sharpness, everything you need to get.

“When he comes back to us he gets a two week pre-season, pre-seasons are usually five to six weeks. I think it’s clearly that Anthony is slightly off on his fitness levels, especially where he was last year where he worked tirelessly to get into the best physical shape he could be.

“At the moment we’re trying to get him fit in the games, we’re trying to leave him on the pitch as long as we can, knowing that we can’t really train him because we’ve had a busy spell. It’s never ideal. He will be fine, touch wood as long as he stays injury-free we’ll get him up to speed quickly.”

A new contract could mean a release clause is inserted

The report claims that despite Gordon signing a long-term contract when he joined the club, the plan was always to revisit his terms once he proved his worth to the club, much like they have done with Bruno Guimaraes.

Our big fear now is that negotiating a new contract opens the door for Gordon to get a release clause inserted into his deal which could bring Liverpool back to the table.

Hopefully, the club are clever with it like they were with Bruno's and put it for a limited time when no club is expected to have any money to get a deal done.