Rafa Benitez eyes THREE new signings as he hints at a busy final week at Newcastle

After a difficult summer there are just eight days left of trading.

And Benitez is expecting to be busy before the window slams shut next Thursday.

Up to six players could leave the Magpies, with the likes of Tim Krul, Achraf Lazaar and Emmanuel Riviere told they have no future at the club, while offers will be listened to for Grant Hanley, Jack Colback and Henri Saivet among others.

At least three new faces are expected to come through the St James’s Park doors, with Chelsea’s Kenedy widely expected to be the closest deal in the pipeline.

And until United know exactly what the make up of their squad will be, Benitez says it is difficult to put definitive plans in place.

But he believes September 1 will draw a line in the sand for the Magpies.

“We are expecting players to come. We are trying to move players in, but at the same time we are trying to move players out,” said Benitez.

“It will be different (on Sept 1), 100%.”

When asked if he will be relieved when the window shuts, he added: “I don’t know if relief is the word. But I have said before that it’s not fair to have players around that next week might be in another team and nobody knows what is going on.”

Pushed on incomings, Benitez said: “It depends, you can’t say for certain this player will go, maybe he doesn’t like the other team or maybe they don’t offer the money. It’s not so easy to know how many of this five or six will go.

“Players in? When you start talking about names at the end of the window, the other clubs think that English teams have a lot of money so the prices go higher and higher and maybe you can’t pay them money they are asking for or maybe you are looking at a player they don’t want to sell.”