REPORT: Newcastle are attempting to unload a 22-year-old who was signed last year but has yet to make his debut.

Newcastle are attempting to unload a 22-year-old who was signed last year but has yet to make his debut.

Last January, Newcastle United paid £3 million to sign Harrison Ashby from West Ham United. West Ham fans regarded right-back Harrison Ashby as one of their most promising youth prospects before Newcastle pounced and dragged him away in a £3 million trade on deadline day in January 2023. While we didn’t anticipate Ashby to break into the first team right away, we did see him as a potential player and a likely long-term successor for Kieran Trippier.

In fact, Ashby’s style of play has been compared to Trippier’s, so it felt like an obvious choice.

Tino Livramento surpassed Harrison Ashby in the pecking order. Ashby impressed in pre-season for Newcastle, even scoring once, and it appeared that the 22-year-old’s future was bright, but then Newcastle signed Tino Livramento for £32 million, who also plays right-back, causing widespread confusion. Clearly, Livramento was now considered the natural successor to Kieran Trippier, but what did this mean for Ashby?

Harrison Ashby joined Swansea on loan this season and performed admirably for the Swans, but he’s already returned, and GiveMeSport reports that his time at Newcastle may come to an end prematurely this summer.

We hope this is not true, but we can’t be sure. Ashby is one of four players who will return from loan at the end of the season and be asked to find new teams for the upcoming season. It is not the most implausible situation because the club has to raise finances but does not want to sell any of their key players, but we can’t help but feel disappointed if it is true.

Ashby was never meant for the present; he was always a future signing, but he has a lot of promise and, as previously stated, looked very promising in pre-season, so we hope it’s not true. The other guys listed are Ryan Fraser, Isaac Hayden, and Jamal Lewis, and I’d gladly give them a lift wherever they needed to go, but I truly hope we keep Ashby and grow him into the star West Ham fans expected him to be.