'There's a chance he could leave': Eddie Howe expects £15m man to leave Newcastle this week

With incoming transfers taking an age it's sometimes easy to forget that Newcastle United still have a few players to move on before the transfer deadline.

Newcastle still has a few players on the books who were told ages ago that they have no future at the club.

Ryan Fraser has been training with the reserves since last summer and spent last season on loan at Southampton who were keen to make his switch permanent this summer but have failed to do so.

Isaac Hayden has had more loan moves than he's had appearances for Newcastle at this point but the midfielder had a decent loan spell at QPR in the second half of last season which we also thought would be made permanent this summer. There was talk of a mutual termination of his contract at one point too, I seem to recall, but Hayden remains a Newcastle player.

Jamal Lewis could still leave this summer

Finally, there's the £15 million signing from Norwich, Jamal Lewis who played a few games in pre-season for Eddie Howe, but is still facing a St James' Park exit.

The left-back's career never quite took off the way it was expected to at Newcastle and now Eddie Howe said in his Friday morning press briefing that despite Lewis' involvement in pre-season, he's still one of those who will be moved on this summer if possible.

“Jamal is still the same position that I discussed a couple of weeks ago. Let’s see what happens between now and the window, there’s a chance he could leave.”

Eddie Howe might give Fraser a lift to Southampton personally just to make sure he's gone

It's highly likely that all three will end up going out on loan again as the trio are on wages higher than their skills justify thanks to Mike Ashley's weird long-term contract strategy.

While loan deals aren't ideal they do still shift some money off the wage bill and every little helps.

That being said, we'd not be shocked to see a deal done between Newcastle and Southampton for Ryan Fraser at a cut-rate just to get him out of Eddie Howe's face.