Newcastle United's first full season under their new Saudi-led regime, with Eddie Howe in charge, is in full flow with plenty of new developments set to be made on Tyneside as the club look to move forward.
Howe has been told that he must trim down his current playing squad should he wish to bring in more players this summer, with Matt Targett, Nick Pope and Sven Botman already arriving in the north east ahead of next season.
And, as a result, the 44-year-old has shown his ruthless side by effectively demoting three first-team players from the squad and ordering them to train with the club's reserves, in an effort to ship them out this summer.
Despite entering their first full summer transfer window as the richest club in the world, Newcastle's transfer budget will not be anywhere near what they had hoped it would be due to Financial Fair Play rules, which means that any extra funds must be generated from player sales.
Target, Pope and Botman have already been signed for a combined spend of £60million, but more are expected to come in before the transfer window slams shut. With this in mind, Howe needs to make room in his squad and will need to begin shipping players out in order to do so.
As revealed by Chronicle Live, the former Bournemouth manager has already axed three first-team players from his squad in an effort to move them on from St. James' Park this summer, with Ciaran Clark, Jeff Hendrick and Dwight Gayle all rerouted to train at the Academy building.
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Clark was signed from Aston Villa for £5m in 2016 and has since gone on to record 127 appearances in six seasons for the Magpies, but injury meant he made just 12 of those last season. And following the arrivals of Dan Burn and now Botman, he has fallen further down the pecking order, although he still has a year left on his current deal.
Hendrick has made just 27 appearances in two seasons at Newcastle after arriving on a free transfer from Burnley in 2020, while he spent the second half of last season on loan at Championship side Queens Park Rangers. However, he is desperate to retain his place in the Republic of Ireland's national set-up and needs regular game time to do so.
Finally, Gayle is also expected to leave, having signed for £10m from Crystal Palace in 2016. The forward has scored 34 goals in 122 appearances for the Magpies, with just 11 of them coming in the last four seasons. In 2021/22, he played just nine times in all competitions, but still had two years left to run on his current deal, along with Hendrick.
Howe's ruthless decision has primarily come off the back of knowing he must sell in order to decrease his squad size and bring in extra spending money, but also from part-owner Amanda Staveley's comments back in March about the club's wage-to-turnover ratio.
Staveley admitted that the ratio was "probably too high", at around 65 per cent, and this figure will have only increased following the three arrivals so far this summer on a permanent basis. As a result, moving players on, or at least finding clubs who will take on a percentage of their wages, is hugely important.
Newcastle are working on increasing revenues through new sponsorship deals as things stand, meaning that any offload of outgoings will be crucial in any future deals, made both on and off the pitch. The first team squad currently stands at 33 players, which is before Howe has even brought in youngsters to take part in his training sessions.
