End of the road for £15m flop as Newcastle United set to show defender the door

There are several Newcastle United players whose contracts are due to expire at the end of this month, and as each day passes, we get a clearer idea of who won't be sticking around.

Yesterday, it was reported that John Ruddy will leave the club after signing last summer to primarily help out with goalkeeper coaching. Although the 38-year-old did find himself on the bench 11 times during the campaign, as he seemed to be ahead of £20 million signing Odysseas Vlachodimos in the pecking order.

Meanwhile, Callum Wilson is expected to leave the club when his contract expires, but there is an opportunity for the striker to stay on Tyneside on a pay-as-you-play type of deal.

One player who won't be offered a chance to remain at St James' Park, according to The Chronicle, is full-back Jamal Lewis.

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Things never worked out for Jamal Lewis at Newcastle

Jamal Lewis was signed five years ago for £15 million from Norwich and was touted as the next big thing, but we never saw any evidence to back up this claim during his time at Newcastle.

Indeed, in five years, the now 27-year-old only managed 24 Premier League appearances for Newcastle, whether unavailable through injury, being out on loan or simply not preferred by whichever manager happened to be in charge at the time.

Newcastle thought they had offloaded Lewis last season when he went to Sao Paulo on loan with an option to buy, only for injury to cut short his time in Brazil. Lewis returned to Newcastle, where he was included in the squad for the second half of the season, but this was more a gesture than any meaningful move. There was a space in the squad, and rather than let it go unoccupied, Eddie Howe handed it to Lewis.

Good luck, Jamal Lewis, we hope you can revive your career elsewhere

With his contract due to expire at the end of the month, unless Lewis has compromising images of a member of the Newcastle board that he can leverage into a new contract, it seems like we've seen the last of Jamal Lewis.

Hopefully, the lad can find himself a new club and get his career back on track. We're sure he's a nice lad, but it just wasn't meant to be for him on Tyneside.

Newcastle will now be £2.1 million a year better off for clearing his wages off the books.