Newcastle United still have a trio of players on lucrative contracts who won’t be in the first-team squad this season but Dan Ashworth isn’t panicking just yet.
There are still a couple of weeks left in the summer transfer window which means Newcastle still have time to find new clubs for Jeff Hendrick, Isaac Hayden and the £63,000-a-week (SalarySport) outcast Ryan Fraser.
While Fraser was banished to train with the reserves last season after another falling out with Eddie Howe, Hendrick and Hayden spent their seasons out on loan.
Dan Ashworth feels there’s plenty of time to offload Ryan Fraser
Now though, Newcastle want to ensure that the three are moved off the books permanently. All three are on quite good contracts at Newcastle which is making it harder to find clubs to take them off the Magpies’ hands.
It’s expected that none of the trio will be given a place in Eddie Howe’s final Premier League squad which means if they aren’t moved on they’re picking up a lot of money for nothing.
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Sporting Director Dan Ashworth isn’t panicking about this just yet though. Speaking at a round table event with journalists this week, Ashworth spoke of the need to move some players on saying (via The Chronicle): “What tends to happen is pre-season finishes. What clubs tend to do is hold a slightly higher number of players, for example, we had two XIs last weekend.
“So you need slightly higher numbers. Then players tend to be able released and drop out from there.
If the high-earning trio are moved on it could free up funds for January
“Then you have the domino effect, once the season starts people then tend to accelerate in the last month of the window. Things move and move around.”
It may be late in the window then when we see the trio finally leave which could potentially mean that there won’t be time to benefit from the Financial Fair Play benefit of moving on three players in terms of bringing another in, but at least it clears a chunk off the wage bill.
It also means that come January that FFP buffer will still be there so Ashworth and Howe can look to bring in players if needed in the winter window.