Newcastle United have been handing out contracts like Oprah Winfrey hands out cars lately, except for the obvious case of Alexander Isak which dominated headlines last week.
Dan Burn and Anthony Gordon followed Bruno Guimaraes in signing on the dotted line to extend their stay on Tyneside.
And while Eddie Howe has pretty much told Alexander Isak that he'll have to wait for his turn, it does seem that the club aren't done with handing out new deals.
Newcastle have a few first-team players who will be out of contract in the summer and while I'm sure there won't be many people fighting the case of offering Callum Wilson a new deal, there's one player who will divide opinion.
The Telegraph are reporting that the club sees Sean Longstaff as an important part of the squad and as such will take up the option to trigger a contract extension with his current deal set to expire in the summer.
26-year-old Longstaff came through the academy at Newcastle and has been a regular feature in the first-team under the past few bosses, although he was frozen out under Steve Bruce and was close to quitting before Eddie Howe came in and revived his career.
We're sure there'll be no hesitation from Longstaff to sign a contract extension given his love for the club.
We're absolutely fine with Longstaff sticking around at the club, he has proven himself to be a very useful squad player, but that should be how he is viewed going forward.
There are too many midfielders at the club who are ahead of him in terms of talent as things stand, and if the club is to continue on an upward trajectory, we can't be relying on Sean Longstaff to get us into the Champions League - even if he does have a UCL goal on his CV now.
He's definitely earned a stay of execution, though. Playing through injury last season as the squad around him crumbled was an underrated move from an 'underrated' player.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
12 | 16 | 31 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
12 | 5 | 23 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
5 |
Brighton
|
12 | 5 | 22 |
6 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
12 | 14 | 19 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
12 | 2 | 19 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
12 | 0 | 19 |
9 |
Fulham
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
11 |
Brentford
|
12 | 0 | 17 |
12 |
Manchester United
|
12 | 0 | 16 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
12 | -1 | 15 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
12 | -4 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
12 | -7 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
12 | -8 | 10 |
17 |
Wolves
|
12 | -8 | 9 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
12 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Crystal Palace
|
12 | -7 | 8 |
20 |
Southampton
|
12 | -15 | 4 |