Andros Townsend has always made it pretty clear he would consider leaving Newcastle if they got relegated and look for a move to a Premier League club.
Of course, that begs the question of why the England midfielder joined the Magpies from Spurs in January with the threat of relegation already looming large.
According to the Mirror, though, there is a release clause in Townsend’s contract that would allow him to leave for just £10.5million and Liverpool are interested in activating it.
Townsend would bring pace and width to Jurgen Klopp’s attack and could fulfil the same function as Raheem Sterling used to at Anfield.
The paper claims Southampton, West Ham, Crystal Palace, and most surprisingly, Manchester City are all interested in the 24-year-old.
With options like that available to him, Newcastle must be resigned to losing Townsend.
After a difficult final year at Spurs, where he fell out with boss Mauricio Pochettino, Townsend was electric for Newcastle in the final few months of the 2015/2016 season, but it was not enough to keep them in the top flight.
Now that the north-east side have managed to persuade manager Rafael Benitez to stay, it should be a little easier to hold onto players, but it’s debatable whether Townsend’s heart was ever really at the club.
A move to a club like Liverpool could resurrect his England chances, as Three Lions boss Roy Hodgson is known to like him as a player.
There was a brief spell when Townsend was a big player for Tottenham and England, but it seems a distant memory now.
He was selected for the provisional squad this summer, but was one of the players cut.
It remains to be seen whether Hodgson will even be in charge after Euro 2016 after a so far unimpressive campaign by England, but if he is, and if Townsend gets back to his best with Liverpool, the midfielder still has a chance of resurrecting his international career.
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