Newcastle United need to be better sellers and everybody knows it. They need to be smarter, more strategic, less emotional and more dispassionate, doing what works for them when it works for them. Sandro Tonali leaving for Manchester City would tick most of those boxes — accompanied by a sharp pang of regret — but were he to join Tottenham Hotspur, it would tick none. Some moves come at too high a cost, no matter how much money they might generate, and this is one of them.
Anthony Gordon’s €80million (£69.3m; $93.2m) departure to Barcelona was a case study in efficiency. Negotiations were swift, the deal suited all parties and the England forward left radiating positivity about his time at St James’ Park, sentiments which were reciprocated. Newcastle were not heartbroken; it had taken a lot of patience and effort to get Gordon focused and re-energised after Liverpool attempted to sign him two years earlier, and there was no desire to go through all that again. It felt right.
In many ways, it was the antithesis of Alexander Isak’s drawn-out and discomforting transfer to Liverpool the previous summer, a partially self-inflicted mess which is instructing much of what Newcastle are doing now. They rebuffed Liverpool’s interest, Isak effectively went on strike, and Newcastle maintained that the Sweden international was not for sale until the moment they sold him, bringing in £125m, a British record fee, but with no time to spend it judiciously.
It was a desperately chastening transfer window. Newcastle had finally won a trophy and were back in the Champions League for the second time in three seasons, but their early attempts to pick off good players from fellow Premier League teams met with failure. And there were always going to be ramifications from the loss of Isak, whether the negative effect it had on Eddie Howe’s team or the potential precedent it set to his former team-mates.
Gordon left with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, his move completed early, with no chance of festering or disenchantment. It set a tone; Newcastle were open for business, albeit on their terms. Gordon got what he wanted without Isak’s bridge-burning, joining a club which is almost certain to be in the Champions League every season, which can pay big wages and which will compete for the game’s biggest prizes.
Newcastle know they are vulnerable to offers for Tonali. To put that a different way, while the Italian has not directly expressed a desire to leave, his representatives have been on manoeuvres for months, offering him to Arsenal in January and talking to Tottenham more recently. City’s interest is now firming up, all of which The Athletic has reported. There have been no talks between the clubs but if an offer comes, it will be considered.
Manchester City and Arsenal are Champions League teams that won silverware last season. Newcastle selling the 26-year-old to either of those clubs would hardly be ideal because they want to compete with them as equals rather than strengthen them, and while the likes of Brighton & Hove Albion, Brentford and Bournemouth have demonstrated it is possible to sell and improve, none of them are perennial challengers. It is a recognition of where, post-Isak, Newcastle are in the Premier League’s pecking order.
Big clubs routinely sell big players, but rarely jettison their best players at or just before their peak. Isak was a 20-goal-per-season forward and therefore almost priceless, while Gordon was Newcastle’s top scorer last season. On form — and he has not regularly shown it in 2026 — Tonali is a world-class footballer, a category which is increasingly in short supply on Tyneside. Him leaving for City or Arsenal might sting, but it would at least be understandable. They can make an almost tangible offer of success.
Spurs could not. After two 17th-placed seasons in the Premier League — and narrowly avoiding relegation — Tottenham are not in Europe (albeit they reached the last 16 of the Champions League). They are based in London, which can be a draw to players, their stadium is elite and they bring in more commercial revenue than Newcastle, but in a football sense, they have been shambolic, bouncing between managers and crises. They are the sole legacy ‘Big Six’ club Newcastle can feel they have overhauled. They are a direct rival.
None of this, by the way, is meant to disparage a great, historic club, but in the circumstances, Newcastle should not be offering them any succour.
Would their money not be as good as anybody else’s? No, not when it comes to optics and here there is an existential element about the club Newcastle now are and yearn to be. What is on the record is the desire expressed by David Hopkinson, their chief executive, for them “to be in the debate” about being “the top club in the world” by 2030 and similar expressions of ambition from Amanda Staveley, the former co-owner, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the club’s chairman.
Getting there by selling does not feel straightforward, particularly when the buying part will include targeting younger, less established players — in Premier League terms — like Ewen Jaouen, their new goalkeeper, and Osasuna’s Spain winger Victor Munoz. While Newcastle insist their model has not significantly changed, it is different to what they did a year ago and definitely different to not buying anybody, which has also been a theme.
Being clever and snapping up exciting talent before the Premier League’s big boys are prepared to do the same served Newcastle well in the early days post-takeover; it got them Bruno Guimaraes, Sven Botman, even Isak, amongst others, although the narrative then was that they were shooting for the top. There should be a level of excitement about having a forward-thinking sporting director in Ross Wilson working in tandem with Howe and Hopkinson, and the construction of a fresh, younger team.
Yet that policy, combined with selling, brings risks. Howe excels in making players better but there are no guarantees; Guimaraes was an instant hit, more or less, but it has taken Will Osula two years to look like a reliable Premier League striker. There is nothing wrong with effectively being Brighton on steroids or Bournemouth with a bigger chequebook, yet it does not quite marry with the image Newcastle have portrayed in public. As they look to progress, are they simply taking a breath or is it actually a step backwards?
Tonali to Manchester City (or Arsenal) would be one thing. Newcastle are not actively pushing for it to happen and there is a danger it entrenches the idea of talent-drain at a moment when Lewis Hall, the left-back, is also being linked with a move away, but they could make the case they are not at that level yet and a bit of pain now will get them closer to it. In any case, Isak shows they should not stand in the way of aspirational or disgruntled players.
Spurs would be another thing entirely. Like Tottenham, Newcastle had a draining season, but there is a difference between top-class players leaving clubs as a short-cut to the top and leaving full-stop, and the messaging it sends out. Perceptions are important, internally and externally, and Newcastle need to show they are a club where ambitions can still be fulfilled, if not quite yet at the highest possible level. Being smarter does actually mean sometimes saying no.