Peter Crouch
Peter Crouch
214 appearances. Those memorable goals against PSG and Southampton under the lights at St James' Park. That penalty at Nottingham Forest. Being part of the squad who won the club's first major domestic trophy in 70 years...
has certainly lived the dream at but if the midfielder ends up joining Leeds United, it feels like the right time to go - .
However, this would still be an emotional move for all parties that goes far beyond cold words like 'pure profit' and 'PSR'.
Eddie Howe, after all, said he was 'really uncomfortable' about trading another academy graduate, Elliot Anderson, after the Magpies had 'invested in him since he joined the club as a young lad' while CEO Darren Eales admitted such deals were a 'bit perverse'.
Former England striker Peter Crouch touched on his own 'frustration' with clubs being incentivised to trade homegrown talents just this week.
"Fans of football clubs love them," he said. "If you're a Geordie who's playing for Newcastle or someone who's come through the club, the way it is now, Steven Gerrard would be a fantastic asset for Liverpool to sell. Who wants that?
"John Terry? Someone comes in and pays £100m for him and generates huge profit for the club because he's come from nothing. Conor Gallagher?
"Everyone is talking about having to sell homegrown players. That is not good for our game, is it?"
It is one of the many strange quirks of the current PSR rules that Chelsea have aggressively exploited alongside the sale of club assets like the women's team, of course, to help fund years of lavish spending.
A number of youngsters have departed who have gone on to be worth a great deal more - Chelsea banked just £5.3m initially for Tino Livramento when he joined Southampton while Crystal Palace paid £21m for Marc Guehi - but the Blues have still brought in huge sums.
In fact, in the last decade, football finance expert Kieran Maguire has estimated that Chelsea have raised nearly double (£907m) what Manchester City (£584m) have in player sales.
Digging deeper, since 2021, the departures of Mason Mount, Ian Maatsen, Tammy Abraham, Conor Gallagher, Kurt Zouma, Fikayo Tomori and Omari Hutchinson generated £242.8m - and that is before mentioning the dozens of others players who have left in that time.
Newcastle, in contrast, have not historically been strong traders. Although Newcastle admittedly started from a lower base, and did not benefit from the years of investment that Chelsea pumped into the club's academy, the Magpies averaged just £12m profit on disposal in a relatively recent three-year cycle.
For context, the average of the so-called 'big six' was £156m in the same period while even the other 13 clubs generated north of £60m.
Hence why Newcastle had to dash to raise funds through the sales of Anderson and Yankuba Minteh before the end of the financial year last summer to avoid a PSR breach.
It was a situation that senior figures repeatedly stressed Newcastle never wanted to be in again and the black-and-whites have since traded Miguel Almiron and Lloyd Kelly while Longstaff may follow.
Rather than leave for free at the end of his contract in a year's time, Longstaff could instead generate an immediate £10m, which would pretty much cover the first year of Anthony Elanga's amortised £55m fee. Balancing the aggregate in such a way has never been more vital in a PSR world.
"Trading is probably the most important short-term way without a new stadium and all the other things we have discussed many times," Howe told reporters a few months ago. "Trading takes on huge importance.
"I'm not going to go on about the history of Newcastle's trading but, just in the last few windows, it's not been clear and easy for us to navigate our way through this situation so we're trying our best to comply with the rules."