Anthony Gordon's name should not be in the mouths of anyone discussing transfers.
In October, the Liverpudlian signed a new "long-term" contract and issued a definitive stance on his future.
"I just think the club's in a great place," he said after the deal was done, "since the takeover, it's just been up and up. Me and the gaffer are a perfect match in terms of style of play. I love it here."
It was a deal that should have shut down any speculation about Gordon's future, which had been running wild in the summer.
However, the opening of the January transfer window has resulted in the England international once again being linked with moves to rivals.
Ex-Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann identified Gordon as a potential replacement for Mohamed Salah, whose future at Anfield is uncertain.
"There have been reports that Anthony Gordon was a Liverpool fan growing up and, although Mohamed Salah cannot be replaced, you need to look at players who can influence games," the former Germany international told GreatOffshoreSportsBooks.
"At the moment, I would look at Gordon and Jarrod Bowen as two brilliant wingers in the Premier League.
"Gordon had a tough start at Newcastle but has now won the fans over. Newcastle are probably reluctant to let him go because he's their most important player with Alexander Isak.
"I love watching him, and he's certainly another player Liverpool are looking at. If he did grow up supporting Liverpool, people in England are very very connected to their first clubs and I know that from having players at Liverpool who were Everton fans growing up. When it comes to transfers, it could be a deciding factor."
"Reluctance" is a strange word to describe someone who has just committed their "long-term" future to the club; it should be 'unquestionable.'
Yet journalist David Orntstein, who is regarded as one of the foremost authorities on transfers, also name-checked Gordon as one of the players with suitors.
"They came close to doing something on Anthony Gordon in the past," he told the Premier League's YouTube channel.
"I don't think he would be one they would like to lose. But I do hear of clubs that have huge admiration for Anthony Gordon, even Arsenal among them like Anthony Gordon."
There are only two reasonable explanations for why rival clubs would feel emboldened to eye a move for the Newcastle United forward.
The first is that the length of his contract, which has not been disclosed, is perhaps not as comprehensively "long-term" as we might believe.
The one wrinkle in October's announcement was a lack of transparency over the number of years Gordon was tied to the club.
The other reason is more obvious: profit and sustainability rules [PSR] that limit a club's losses.
Regulations introduced over the past decade have created a situation where accountancy practices influence a team's player recruitment strategy as much as tactical plans.
The current rules doubled down on the profit and loss section of a club balance sheet that appears in practice to be an obvious place to start, but in reality, it is a decision that skews club business badly.
As experts have pointed out, measuring a business using only one metric ignores essential figures relating to debt and cashflow, which indicate a company's health as much, if not more, than profit.
After all, the bottom line is always open to a bit of gaming, whether through payment dates, the timing of commercial deals, delayed acquisitions, or other more complex accountancy tricks.
Soccer clubs soon realized the best way to boost their profit was through player trading, or more specifically, by selling young players for whom they had not paid a transfer fee.
This is because, under current PSR rules, clubs can immediately book all the revenue from a transfer as a profit regardless of when the cash flows into the club.
This benefit is heightened for players who've come through the ranks and have no legacy cost on the balance sheet from being bought themselves.
This means what used to be a club's most prized asset -- a talent beloved by fans who has risen through the ranks-is now the first commodity a director of football reaches for when trying to comply with PSR.
Newcastle United's boss, Eddie Howe, felt the pain of that current situation this summer when he had to sell off two talented youth products.
"I felt really uncomfortable in the summer when we were forced to make sales of two really talented young players in Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh, against our will really for financial reasons," the Newcastle United boss told former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan's podcast Up Front.
"One was an academy product we'd invested in since he joined the club as a young lad. You just think, 'Why are we doing this? This doesn't feel right.
"I understand the rules to a degree. I understand the concept but I think how it is fundamentally working at the moment is not right."
He added:" The buying and selling of players has always been such a good thing for the game."
"It brings intrigue and so much to the game, but now it's almost gone against that.
"It's purpose was to do one thing but in reality it has turned into something totally different."
Fortunately for Newcastle United, Howe is not a man who sits around complaining about his lot. He told Jordan he still believed the Magpies could thrive.
"I am a believer in that anything is possible. Leicester proved in a one-off season that if you get everything right you can do incredible things.
"I stick to that and believe if we got everything right and had the season of our lives we could do unbelievable things. That drives me.
"But I think to do that consistently under the current rules is difficult."
If you needed any more evidence of how bent out of shape PSR is, then look at the shameful situation in which Gordon, who "loves" playing for a team with ambitions to be the best, signs a long-term deal and is still linked with transfers to rivals.