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Liverpool's hopes of finding a long-term replacement for Virgil van Dijk have received a blow after Newcastle United's transfer guru Ross Wilson confirmed Sven Botman will be offered a new contract.

Liverpool are in the market for a new centre-half amid the alarming decline of Van Dijk this season. They missed out on the signing of Marc Guehi in the summer but have been linked with a move for Dutchman Botman who has just 18 months left on his Newcastle contract.

However, Newcastle are determined to hold on to their biggest assets and are preparing a fresh offer to Botman, who is also a target for Chelsea, and Tino Livramento who is being eyed by Manchester City, having already tied down Sandro Tonali to an extended contract.

Sporting director Ross Wilson revealed: "My first three or four days in the job was when I found that Sandro's contract situation was significantly better than the one I was expecting. My first days were about analysing contracts – where are we, where are we strong, where are we weak, where have we got issues?

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"It's no secret at all that we would want to extend Tino's contract, and we would want to extend Sven Botman's contract too. Those discussions are ongoing.

"Some discussions are more difficult than others, but the desire would be to keep those players. Will they agree to those contracts? At the moment, I think it's too early to say.", reports Chronicle Live.

As the January window looms, Wilson also touched on Newcastle's recruitment plans for 2026, but stated that no major decisions have been made internally yet as he waits to discuss with Eddie Howe what the Toon boss wants.

The ex-Rangers boss added: "Basically, where we're at right now is that Eddie and I haven't spoken about what January looks like in terms of incomings.

"What we've talked about is what the thoughts are about the squad right now. Where's his head at with the squad we've already got? How does that look? How does he feel about that, the shape, the size of it? Individuals?".

"That's what we've spoken about up to now. The scouting work is always ongoing. So, the guys are doing loads of work with that all the time."

Newcastle forked out £250m last summer following a string of barren and PSR-restricted transfer windows. However, despite their massive summer spending spree, there are no significant limitations heading into the upcoming transfer window.

Wilson remarked: "Can we spend in January?".

"Yes. If we want to, we can. I think it's fairly obvious to everybody, given the level of club spend in the summer, that we're not going to do that again in the winter window as well, for a variety of reasons.

"But if we want to spend, we can. Of course, we'll be creative, of course, we'll be opportunistic as well.

"But probably the most important thing is that it would have to align with what the summer plan looks like, which is the bigger squad plan. All of those conversations are ongoing. We'll have the ones about where Eddie sees the need in the squad, if at all.

"But for now, the conversations have been, 'What have we got, what do we think about what we've got, where do we see this', then let's see how that fits into January and the next part of the conversation."

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