Newcastle sporting director Dan Ashworth admits they were taken by surprise by Sandro Tonali's betting scandal.

The midfielder has been banned for ten months after placing illegal bets as an AC Milan player.

"From the minute it happened, you look at yourself. What could we have done better? What could I have done better? What lessons can be learned? Could we have known? Should we have known? He is a top player and a great signing, we will miss him," Ashworth told The Guardian.

"It's really hard for me to get into what other clubs do or don't know. All we can do is look at our own internal investigation and internal process. It's a very difficult question for me to answer - I just don't know,.

"You look at your processes. I've been doing this for 16 years and nothing like this has ever happened before. We pride ourselves on our due diligence and getting the right characters.

"We spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the character as well as the athlete. It's really tricky about what you can and can't know about people in this world of GDPR and what you can and can't control."