{"id":156,"date":"2026-04-23T22:20:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/2026\/04\/23\/newcastle-in-crisis-eddie-howe-under-pressure-wantaway-stars-and-potential-saudi-cut-backs-leave-magpies-with-massive-problems\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:20:41","slug":"newcastle-in-crisis-eddie-howe-under-pressure-wantaway-stars-and-potential-saudi-cut-backs-leave-magpies-with-massive-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle in crisis: Eddie Howe under pressure, wantaway stars and potential Saudi cut backs leave Magpies with massive problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"article-body\" data-affiliate-button-variant=\"C\">\n<div>\n<p><span>It&#8217;s not just incoming transfers that are a problem on Tyneside; all the noise around the club suggests they are about to witness a mass exodus of their biggest and best players. Speaking ahead of the Bournemouth game, Howe seemed to admit as much, saying: &#8220;There&#8217;s a few players out of contract and you&#8217;ve got some big players who have done amazing things for the club maybe entering their final few months of their time here. You&#8217;ve got possibly players leaving in the summer and that natural evolution on that side, which happens at a football club.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;So, I can understand why the (term the) &#8216;end of a cycle&#8217; might be used. What that looks like is unknown. It&#8217;s always unknown. It&#8217;s almost impossible to predict a summer transfer window and say, &#8216;this will happen&#8217; or &#8216;that will happen&#8217;. It&#8217;s been impossible in every window I&#8217;ve ever managed because the moving forces in football are so difficult to predict.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Those words will have done little to lift the gloom around St. James&#8217; Park, and questions will be asked of the commitment of those wantaway stars as their season winds down. Howe tellingly paused for <\/span><i><em>seven seconds<\/em><\/i><span>  when asked whether his squad shared that &#8220;fire&#8221; he had previously spoken about in his post-match press conference on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The players he is referring to are most likely Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes, Tino Livramento and Anthony Gordon, while Kieran Trippier&#8217;s exit has already been confirmed as he enters the final few months of his contract, and long-serving defender Fabian Schar could follow suit. Remarkably, it&#8217;s been reported that Woltemade or <\/span><span>Wissa could be moved on after just one season<\/span><span>too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Tonali has been <\/span><span>strongly linked with Arsenal and Manchester United for months<\/span><span>while Guimaraes is supposedly <\/span><span>a target for the latter<\/span><span>  and is known to be greatly admired by Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola; Livramento, too, is on the Gunners&#8217; and City&#8217;s radars and is likely to be allowed to leave.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Gordon, meanwhile, is the latest big-name Newcastle player to generate serious speculation of an impending exit, with <\/span><span>Bayern Munich supposedly keen to have the \u00a375m-rated ($101m) England winger<\/span><span>  competing with Luis Diaz on their left flank, and <\/span><span>the 25-year-old is said to be open to leaving<\/span><span>. At this early stage, Woltemade has only been loosely linked with a switch to Bayern Munich or Chelsea.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not just incoming transfers that are a problem on Tyneside; all the noise around&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}