HAVING made some significant contract breakthroughs in the last month, Newcastle United are confident of tying down another of their key players with Fabian Schar close to agreeing the terms of a new deal.

Schar’s current contract, which was signed in 2022, is due to expire at the end of the season, but talks over a new agreement are understood to be at an advanced stage.

The Swiss centre-half has been a key part of Eddie Howe’s first-choice defence throughout the head coach’s Tyneside reign, and has started all eight of Newcastle’s Premier League matches this season as well as both Champions League games against AC Milan and Paris St Germain.

Howe is desperate the keep the 31-year-old at St James’ Park beyond the end of the current campaign, and while there is a general desire to ensure the average age of the Magpies squad does not creep too high, the days of the Mike Ashley era, when there was a blanket ban on issuing new contracts to players aged over 30, are long gone.

Newcastle’s ownership group are willing to issue Schar with a new deal, and it is hoped an agreement will be confirmed in the next few weeks.

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Bruno Guimaraes signed a new long-term contract earlier this month, while a new deal for Dan Burn was also announced at the end of last week.

Newcastle officials are also understood to have initiated talks with Sean Longstaff and Joelinton, both of whom are due to enter the final year of their current deals at the end of the season. Longstaff signed a three-year extension in 2022, while Joelinton is still on the original deal he sigend when he joined Newcastle from Hoffenheim in 2019.

Like Schar, Howe wants to keep both Longstaff and Joelinton at St James’ Park for the long term, and would ideally like to remove any uncertainty over their contractual situation before the summer transfer window opens.

Speaking earlier this season, Howe said: “We want to try and build up the squad, and that doesn’t mean we take for granted keeping the players that we already have. We have to give them the right environment to want to stay, obviously finances come into that as well.

“For any player, the contract is important because you want stability. You want the player to enter training and games without thinking about their future. You want them just thinking about football, so I’m trying to take everything off the pitch away from them.

“Personal issues they have, contract issues, the football is the most important thing. If any player trains and plays to the best of their ability, they are only going to receive good things off the back of that.”