Ryan Fraser close to terminating Newcastle contract to force move to Southampton - Sky Sports

Newcastle United may have found a way to get Ryan Fraser off the books which will certainly appeal to Southampton.

The diminutive winger spent last season on loan at the Saints and helped Russell Martin's side gain promotion back to the Premier League.

Given Fraser's standing at Newcastle - training with the reserves and having no future at the club - making his move to Southampton permanent this summer seemed like the easiest deal to get done, and yet, here we are on transfer deadline day and Fraser is still a Newcastle United player.

Fraser arrived at Newcastle on a free so getting a transfer fee for him would have been nothing but a bonus, so why things have taken so long to get moving is anyone's guess.

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Newcastle and Fraser are close to reaching an agreement

Now it looks as though Southampton could get their man without spending a penny as Sky Sports has claimed that Newcastle and Fraser are close to agreeing to a contract termination.

That would allow Southampton to pick up Fraser as a free agent.

It seems like an odd way to do things, but at this point it's just about getting him off the books at Newcastle.

Newcastle need to get ruthless

There had been talk of doing a similar thing with Isaac Hayden but he also remains at Newcastle after a proposed move to QPR collapsed this morning.

Newcastle still have so many players hanging on from the Mike Ashley days who weren't even good enough back then.

There needs to be a cull at the club and if they all have to have their contracts terminated like Fraser then so be it. We're not sure how realistic that would be, there's bound to be a load of reasons why that's impractical but we need all the headroom we can get in that wage budget just in case we ever actually sign a player again.