Liverpool was interested in signing Newcastle United winger Anthony Gordon earlier this summer but a proposed swap deal involving Jarell Quansah was never going to come off for the North East side.
In the scramble for PSR compliance, the departure of Gordon was not off the table for Newcastle but it managed to keep the England ace 18 months after signing him from Everton. The Telegraph reported at the start of this month, however, that while the talks involving a part-exchange involving Quansah were never realistic, Gordon's head was "turned" by the prospect of moving to his boyhood club.
Now, Newcastle boss Eddie Howe , who has flirted with the vacant England job this week, has insisted that Gordon will be welcomed back into the fold in the North East once his holiday is over. While the rumors around Liverpool and Gordon are unlikely to disappear, Newcastle has no appetite to lose one of its star men.
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"I welcome him back with three arms if I had them!" Howe says. "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. He’s an integral part of what we’re doing. He needs a bit of a break. By the time he comes back, he’s ready to go."
Gordon, Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak were all linked with exits around the June 30 deadline but Newcastle wanted to keep the trio. Instead, the Geordies were forced to cash in on Elliot Anderson, who signed for Nottingham Forest, and Yankuba Minteh , who now plays for Brighton.
"The rules forced us to do things we didn’t want to do," Howe continued. "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."
Liverpool.com says: Gordon would be a really exciting addition for Liverpool but the chances of it happening this summer appear to be slim. The only way that it could feasibly happen is if the player doesn't pen a contract extension, with his current deal only having two years left on it. By next summer, Newcastle might be backed into a corner.
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