Eddie Howe has confirmed that Sean Longstaff has a contract offer to stay at Newcastle United, revealing that he loves the player a lot more than his minutes indicate.
There’s a worrying situation developing at Newcastle because Longstaff, an academy product, is out of contract this summer.
It’s growing concerningly rare for a homegrown player like the 24-year-old to make waves in the Magpies’ senior side.
However, he has struggled for regular football since Howe has replaced Steve Bruce, particularly this calendar year.
Longstaff has only managed 138 minutes of Premier League football since the turn of the year, with Howe obviously favouring other midfielders at the moment.
But the United manager has pointed to the fact that Bruno Guimaraes cannot get into the starting lineup either, due to the competition for places at St James’s Park.
He told The Chronicle about Longstaff.
“I love Sean, but I maybe haven’t displayed that with my team selections. That’s only because it is a really strong area of the team, Bruno is not playing either.”
Asked if there was an extension on the table, the Newcastle manager added: “Yeah, from my side, every part of me wants him to stay.”
Is Longstaff staying at Newcastle?
Being a Geordie born and bred, he’d love to be a big player in the North East again.
However, there’s an elephant in the room.
The addition of Bruno in January from Lyon is going to make it a lot tougher for Longstaff to play regularly at St James’s Park.
And quite honestly, it’s very possible that he could seriously leave Newcastle this summer.
At the moment it isn’t looking promising that he’s going to be a mainstay in the first XI next season, meaning a departure is legitimately on the cards.
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