Newcastle United do not want to lose any players this month but Eddie Howe has admitted that the Magpies have to take the 'short-term pain' as Atlanta United close in on Miguel Almiron

Although Almiron has only made a solitary league start in the last 10 months, Newcastle do not have another natural alternative to Jacob Murphy on the right-hand side while Harvey Barnes is set to be out for around a month with a thigh injury. However, Newcastle will have to look beyond that if a deal worth potentially up to £10m is on the table for a fringe player.

"When you’re armed with the whole picture, it can look very different," Howe told reporters. "We have to make decisions together and that’s the key thing.

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"It’s not one person dictating to me, 'That’s what we’re going to do'. There might come a time when that might have to be the case if I disagree strongly enough on something, but I’ve then got to give a logical response as to what the solution is if I say that.

"We have to work together to make the right decisions for the here and now and the future. We will try to do that together and that’s the best way with teamwork and consultation.

"But I will make this clear - no one wants to lose any players from our current squad, especially in positions where we are a little bit fragile. Why would we want to leave ourselves in that position? But when you’re armed with all the facts, sometimes, you have to take that short-term pain. "

Trading is going to be a key part of Newcastle's transfer strategy moving forward after the Magpies narrowly avoided a PSR breach following the 11th-hour sales of Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh last summer. Various senior figures at the club have repeatedly stressed they do not want to find themselves in that situation again.

CEO Darren Eales admitted that Newcastle had 'not done a very good job at trading players' in the last decade or so - and the numbers don't lie in that regard. In the nine windows between January, 2020 and January, 2024, only two Newcastle players brought in decent fees - Allan Saint-Maximin and Chris Wood.

In the previous three-year PSR cycle, i.e. before last summer, Newcastle averaged just £12m profit on disposal. Newcastle admittedly started from a lower base, as a relegation threatened-side, but the average of the so-called top six at the time was £156m while the other 13 clubs generated north of £60m.

Last summer represented a shift; Newcastle ended the window in profit following the sales of Anderson and Minteh and the Magpies stopped bidding for Marc Guehi weeks before the close of business after Crystal Palace's demands went beyond what the club were prepared to pay. Although Newcastle ended up saving £65m-plus on Guehi, Howe said on Friday 'it was not as clear as everyone will make out' as 'if you spend more then you have to recoup it at a later date'.

That felt like a reference to the fact Newcastle would have potentially had to sanction departures before the end of the current financial year if Guehi arrived and Howe reiterated there was 'not a pot of money there waiting to be spent'. That is why if Almiron leaves, as expected, there is the very real prospect that Newcastle will decide to wait until the summer to replace the Paraguay international as it will be a better time to do business - even if it will leave the black-and-whites light in the interim.

"Losing players from your squad is always a difficult thing," Howe added. "This is slightly different. I’ve never had this. The first experience was Elliot in the summer. That was the big transfer blow where you were losing someone you didn’t have to lose footballing-wise, but you had to financially. I think this will happen again.

"If you can’t control it, but you know it’s for the benefit of the club, then while you don’t necessarily have to be supportive of it, you can’t block things. You can’t be too clever because it’s about the long-term financial future of the football club. You’ve got to make smart decisions - sometimes decisions that you know will impact the team short-term - but you have to take that pain."