Luke Edwards has now revealed some big Newcastle United transfer news involving the long pursuit of Jesse Lingard.

The Lowdown: Summer target

It has been reported that Lingard is a summer target for the St. James' Park faithful, after missing out on him in the January transfer window.

The Magpies were thought to be fighting it out with West Ham during the winter window, who of course enjoyed the fruits of his excellent loan spell last season, but he stayed put at Old Trafford.

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The midfield player is now out of contract at Manchester United in the summer though, and so can be signed as a free agent.

The Latest: Lingard update

Writing in his latest piece for The Daily Telegraph, Edwards has revealed that the North East club have now ended their pursuit of Lingard, as his financial demands are too high.

Meanwhile, the journalist also shared some pretty big exit news, as up to eight players could leave Tyneside this summer.

Matt Ritchie, Ciaran Clark, Karl Darlow, Federico Fernandez, Isaac Hayden, Jeff Hendrick, Dwight Gayle and Sean Longstaff may all depart, says Edwards.

The Verdict: Move on

Lingard could have been a smart signing on a free - after all, Premier League legend Rio Ferdinand, speaking to FIVE, hailed him as ‘amazing’ after impressing on loan with David Moyes at West Ham.

However, there will be plenty of other targets that the board will want to concentrate on throughout the window, and so they should just move on from him now and look to bigger and better things.

If they are able to clear out some of the eight unwanted players as well, then they can raise funds to buy players of a higher profile than Lingard anyway, and so this is news that the Toon Army should not be losing any sleep over.

In other news, find out who NUFC will now 'listen to offers' for here!