· December 16 2024, 21:30
A new report has today suggested that three of Newcastle United's most high-profile stars are ready to leave the club to find themselves a new challenge.
We're used to stories suggesting that our top players are fixing to leave the club, but it's not often we come across a report that has three of them running for the exit in unison, so fair play to Give Me Sport for coming up with this one.
The futures of Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak and Sandro Tonali are all a constant source of speculation from the media.
Then there are news aggregate sites like Give Me Sport who are desperate to break into the legitimate media space who claim they have 'sources' who feed them information, although we never get direct quotes from these sources which always raises a red flag.
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Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali are all heading for the exit according to this report
Sites like those need constant content and there are days when there's not a lot out there so you have to get creative and it seems like there wasn't much to do today in the GiveMeSport offices so they decided that three of Newcastle's most important players must be looking for an exit because the team currently sit 12th in the Premier League.
Let's ignore the fact that we, along with many other sites much closer to Newcastle United than GMS (and yet don't claim to have any 'sources') have debunked these myths many times already and let's take a look at what this report is suggesting.
Sandro Tonali has been the subject of a lot of speculation recently with Italian media doing all they can to unsettle the former Milan star, but the player's agent came out last week and insisted that Tonali is happy at Newcastle and has no desire to move. If you need any further evidence, watch Tonali when Newcastle's first goal goes in against Leicester. That's raw passion and not something that can be faked.
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Only the players and actual club insiders know for sure what's going on
Bruno Guimaraes is being linked with Manchester City, that's a tale as old as time at this point, but with City struggling and not having Rodri, there seems to be more credibility around the rumours this time, but again, you just have to listen to Bruno talk about Newcastle to know he's going nowhere.
Maybe in the summer, it's a possibility, but Newcastle surely wouldn't sanction a move to a Premier League rival in January when bringing in a replacement would be so difficult.
Finally, Alexander Isak. The Sweden striker is under contract until 2028 which is why there is no rush to sign him up to a new deal. He's also still one of the club's highest earners so while there may be a desire to top that list, it's not as if he's lagging so far behind that it's insulting.
There's a genuine fear that Isak could push to leave if Newcastle fail to secure European football this season, but we're not even halfway through the campaign yet, so it's surely far too soon for him to have itchy feet.
Again, the lack of direct quotes from these 'sources' just leads us to believe they've read something on a forum somewhere and decided to run with it to create content. We're not digging them out, they've got to do what they've got to do, but it's our responsibility to provide the counter argument. At the end of the day, only those inside the club know for sure.