Sean Longstaff opens up on failed Manchester United transfer and how close Newcastle exit was

Newcastle United midfielder Sean Longstaff has opened up about his failed move to Manchester United in 2019.

The 26-year-old was strongly linked with the Red Devils five years ago, though a transfer failed to materialise after Newcastle’s £50million asking price emerged.

Interest in Longstaff arrived on the back of his breakthrough season at St James’ Park, which saw him make 11 successive starts under Rafa Benitez’s stewardship before damaging his knee ligaments in a 2-0 away defeat by West Ham in March 2019.

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Ruled out for the remainder of the 2019/20 campaign following this unfortunate setback, the Magpies’ academy graduate spent the summer at the centre of a transfer saga. Longstaff remained put in the end despite weeks of speculation and penned a new three-year deal on Tyneside in 2022.

Walking out at Old Trafford as captain of Newcastle back in November, at Old Trafford of all places, highlighted how things could have been different for Longstaff. But how exactly does he reflect on not ending up as a member of the Red Devils’ squad?

“I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and I felt the same that night [captaining Newcastle], walking out and looking around,” Longstaff explained. “If that move had happened, I’d never have been about for the Newcastle takeover and I’d never have been able to captain the club. There are so many things I wouldn’t have been able to do.

“I’m happy it didn’t happen in the end, because what I’ve gone on to achieve over the last two years – scoring in a League Cup semi-final, getting to play in a cup final, playing in the Champions League – have been things I never thought would happen, playing for Newcastle.

“When the Manchester United stuff came around, I was still still so young. I’d probably deal with it differently now and not allow myself to get caught up in every little thing going on with it. I was coming back from my knee injury at the time, trying to get fit to prove I could still play. People are talking about you and have built you up so much that the perception is ‘Now you’re like Lionel Messi’. Everyone was expecting too much. Meanwhile, I was in the gym thinking ‘I can’t even do one leg squat’. There was so much going on, but none of the Manchester United stuff came to fruition and I seemed to go from up here to down there.”

Adding further insight into how close he was to heading for Manchester, Longstaff told FourFourTwo: “To be honest, I’m not 100 per cent sure. At the time, Rafa had left, and I’ll be the first to say that as soon as I saw Rafa go, I thought, ‘Oh, he’s just given me a chance – he knew me’.

“Then the new boss comes in and straight away you get a feel for people, and I could sort of tell that we were going to butt heads. Then the club stated ‘We want £50million for you” and you think, ‘Well that’s because they’ve lost Rafa’. Then they said ‘We’ll give you a new contract’, but they never gave me a new contract.

“It plays with your head a bit, and I just thought it was very disrespectful. My contract was winding down and you think, ‘Ah, I’m probably not going to be here any more’ – then the takeover happens, the new manager comes in and you think, ‘Oh, s***, I’ve only got a year left on my contract and now I really want to stay here!’ It’s bygones. I love coming in every single day now, and hope I can be here for a while.”

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