'We shouldn't have to': What Matty Longstaff was told before signing an ill-fated contract with Newcastle

For those of us who endured those dark days, you don't need to tell Newcastle United fans just how abhorrent our club was under Mike Ashley.

When you compare it to the familial atmosphere that has been created since the takeover, those days under Mike Ashley were rotten. Players were treated like garbage and anyone with a voice was silenced or sold.

In a recent interview with The Athletic, former Magpie Matty Longstaff has shared what he was told by the club before signing a two-year extension.

Clearly Newcastle knew they had him over a barrel because Matty was Newcastle through and through and they exploited that massively in feeding him false promises to keep him at the club.

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Matty Longstaff turned down better offers to stay at Newcastle under false pretences

Longstaff was starting to question his future at the club after falling out of favour and had several offers on the table before listening to his heart rather than his head and signing an extension at St James' Park.

“I was very close to leaving and that’s why it went on for so long. Everyone speaks about the money aspect and maybe they thought I was greedy, but it wasn’t really about the money, it was about playing.

“I was actually getting better offers from clubs abroad. The way I looked at it, they were going to try and build me a future. Whereas I always felt with Newcastle, I had meetings with the higher-ups and they said: ‘You’re from Newcastle, you should sign the deal. You’re homegrown, we shouldn’t have to match other teams’.

“I didn’t really feel like there was a desperation (to keep me)… or a pathway to playing. I wasn’t stupid, there were still top players at the club and I knew we were going to try and sign more. All of this was playing in my head.”

Thankfully Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce are nowhere near our beloved club any more

That line "we shouldn't have to match other teams" is actually vile. Then when you add to that how Longstaff goes on to say he went round to Steve Bruce's house where he was told he'd feature more regularly, only to be given just 29 minutes of action in their first 14 games of the season just adds to it.

Bear in mind that this will also have been around the time that Steve Bruce had started to dismantle Matty's big brother Sean Longstaff's career too.

Matty was released by the club but was allowed to use the new facilities at Benton to keep himself in shape while looking for a new club before he eventually joined Toronto in Canada where he's thriving and loving his football again.