Eddie Howe insists Anthony Gordon is ‘dedicated’ to Newcastle

Eddie Howe says he has had no indication that Anthony Gordon is unsettled at Newcastle – but has warned the club they need to avoid a repeat of needing to sell star players to meet Profit and Sustainability Rules.

Mail Sport revealed at the end of June that talks had taken place between the Magpies and Liverpool over the sale of Gordon, and the winger was open to the move if a deal had been agreed.

However, Newcastle found a solution to their £70m PSR black hole by selling Yankuba Minteh to Brighton and Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest.

Gordon is still on holiday after playing for England at Euro 2024, and Howe is confident there will be no issue with the 23-year-old when he does return to training.

‘I would welcome Anthony back with three arms if I had them!’ said Howe. ‘He’s such an important player for us, we didn’t want to lose anybody. Why would we want to lose our best players? We fought really hard to make the right decisions. In those last few weeks it was very, very difficult.

Eddie Howe says he has had no indication that Anthony Gordon is unsettled at Newcastle

Mail Sport revealed that talks had taken place between the Magpies and Liverpool over Gordon

Gordon is on an extended break away from Newcastle following England’s Euro 2024 agony

‘Anthony is an integral part of what we’re doing. He needs a bit of a break. He’s a had a really long season and the Euros will have been emotional for him as well. I’m confident he is OK.

‘I think you can only judge Anthony on what he has given Newcastle on the pitch. He’s been committed. We’ve had no conversations over the summer where it has been fractious or negative. He’s always been the Anthony Gordon who has given absolutely everything to Newcastle and I want to make that clear to all our supporters. By the time he comes back, he’ll be ready to go.’

Howe added: ‘I do feel it is important for players like Bruno (Guimaraes), Anthony and Kieran (Trippier) that they do get some time away. The biggest danger for them is you bring them back too early and there’s no freshness to them. 

‘I think that can really damage their season, so we have to get that right. But we have a game looming very large against Southampton that we have to get them ready for, so it’s a very delicate balance.’

Howe described the frenzied couple of weeks before the PSR deadline as ‘very difficult’

Of the frenzied last weekend before the PSR deadline, Howe said: ‘It was a very difficult last couple of weeks of June. The rules forced to do things we didn’t want to do. 

‘I want to make that clear we didn’t want to sell any of the players we sold. Absolutely not. Why would we want to sell any of our promising young players? Elliot’s someone we’ve invested a lot of time in and it defied the inner feeling we all had associated with the club, it felt wrong.

‘We wish Elliot and Yankuba all the very best in their next football clubs. It was a really difficult time, there was a lot of uncertainty and we didn’t know what was going to happen. 

‘In the end it’s been as good as we could have hoped for in terms of us not being hit with a points deduction which was of course of paramount importance we did that. But we need to make sure we’re not in that position again.’