Newcastle set to sanction major sale if they miss out on Champions League - BBC Sport

Newcastle United essentially has seven games to save its season. That might sound dramatic, but there's a lot at stake in this last handful of games.

If rumours are to be believed, Eddie Howe has these seven games to save his job at Newcastle. Essentially, if the Magpies fail to qualify for Europe, we could be heading for a huge summer of change.

One thing that has made our task slightly easier is that, once again, England will receive that extra Champions League place that we benefited from last season. That means that, if certain circumstances unfold, even an eighth-place finish could be enough for us to bag European football.

It sounded like the Europa Conference League would be good enough to appease the board, but if Newcastle miss out on the Champions League, it could be disastrous in other ways.

Newcastle may have to sell two big stars this summer

As confirmed in a report by the BBC, if Newcastle miss out on Champions League football, the likely scenario is that they will have to sell one, maybe even two of their biggest stars.

Sandro Tonali has already been reported as a potential sacrificial lamb, but there's also interest around Tino Livramento, Bruno Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon.

Tino Livramento is being heavily tracked by Manchester City, and it has felt for a while that this is a move that could happen in the summer, while the Tonali rumour train has a mind of its own.

If Livramento counts as one of our major sales, we can relax a bit, as we'd already pretty much braced for him leaving.

We could recover from losing Tonali

Losing Sandro Tonali wouldn't be ideal, but if we have to sacrifice the Italian in order to ensure we keep Bruno Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon, we can probably live with that.

I'm personally a huge fan of Sandro Tonali, but he certainly divides the Blog office, with some claiming he flatters to deceive. That feeling seems to be widely reflected around the fanbase, too, so while there will be plenty who'd be sad to see Tonali go, the fallout wouldn't be anything like the day Bruno Guimaraes says his goodbyes, whenever and however that happens.

The issue we have is that selling Tonali is fine to raise the funds required for the summer rebuild, but without Champions League, we're going to be very limited in terms of what we can spend on players and wages, as we don't have that cushion of the Champions League money. And if we're in the Europa League or Conference League, we still have to adhere to the 70% Squad Cost Rule rather than the Premier League's 85% rule.

Again, we're getting punished for being successful. Make it make sense.