I have tried to stay relaxed and positive about this Newcastle United transfer window, constantly telling those around me to stay calm and trust the process, but the time has come to ask the question.
What on earth are Newcastle United playing at with regards to bringing new players in?
I then saw the Lewis Jones article on The Mag yesterday that this has been a good transfer window, even if no more new signings, my head nearly exploded!!
For me, this was the transfer window where we made our big moves to create the squad capable of winning trophies and being regulars in the Champions League, I based this on a few assumptions and educated guesses with regards to our financial position.
June 30th 2024 brought us to the dawn of a new era or so I thought as it meant the massive losses from the takeover season of 21/22 were finally off the three year PSR cycle, having inherited a Championship bound squad languishing at the bottom of the Premier League, which meant that drastic action was required and indeed taken by the new owners, spending heavily to keep us in the league with zero income from marketing and players no other clubs wanted.
This resulted in a net loss of over £70m in that financial year and as we saw in the summer, this was a key part (along with over £73m losses in 2022/23) that left us in grave danger of breaching the PSR rules (although not all expenditure/losses count towards the PSR calculations).
With also significant money spent on new signings in summer 2023, that fed into a necessary sale of squad players in June 2024 to make up a widely reported £50m+ PSR shortfall for the three years up to the end of June 2024.
Newcastle United might have had plans on what they wanted to do but we’re reliant on other clubs wanting to buy our “surplus” and so I think they did a fantastic job to get two players sold for what reportedly equalled our record outgoing transfer fee when Elliot Anderson went to Forest and our third biggest fee ever received, for Yankuba Minteh, a player who never even trained with our first team, let alone at a £27m profit!
So on July 1st I started checking all the media feeds like a man possessed for the inevitable influx of top quality players to take us to that next level…
I’m still checking like a lunatic every 30 minutes and still have nothing to show for it, except for pitying looks from my long suffering wife.
According to SSN today we have made a £22m profit so far this window… how is that helping the big PIF project to make us in the words of our chairman “Number One”?
The short answers is that it is absolutely not helping at all.
Which brings us to the changes behind the scenes these past few months.
I have written a few articles about Dirty Dan Ashworth and the terrible way he has behaved. I could have actually put my foot through the TV when I saw his smug little face alongside the two new Man U signings De Ligt and Mazaraoui.
However, it got me thinking back a couple of years ago to the out of the blue announcement that Alexander Isak was on a private jet to Newcastle for £63m fee Agreed, personal terms agreed, only medical to do. Not one leak to any press, no speculation at all, Ashworth flying to Spain and sorting the deal out with no fuss.
Pretty similar with other signings as well in Lewis Hall, Harvey Barnes, Sven Botman and Tino Livramento, all deals sorted without any protracted media driven shenanigans. So despite my dislike of the way he weaseled his way out of the Toon to the Mancs, he got the job done on most occasions.
I was watching the match on Saturday by perfectly legitimate means (honest officer!!) and on several occasions the camera focused on our new DOF Paul Mitchell sitting beside some curly haired bloke on one side and Darren Eales on the other.
Now the first thing I’d like to say is that I absolutely hate, and I mean hate, this stupid hiding your mouth with your hand nonsense. What is that all about man!!! Nobody cares what you are saying to the bloke next to you in the stand (nor on the side of pitch, nor anywhere else on the planet if I’m being honest), who has access to a lip reader anyway? Every time the camera went to them there’s Mitchell doing the hidey hand nonsense rabbiting away to his mates, I wanted to scream at the TV that he shouldn’t even be at the match, he should be sat in a smoky motorway service station with a carrier bag full of cash negotiating with some dodgy agent to get some bloody players into our club.
He’s made us look totally stupid in the eyes of the football world with multiple bids going up in tiny increments for a player that the selling club don’t want to sell to us. Their “Arthur Daley” like chairman and his little weasel crew at Palace are laughing their rocks off about keeping the so called Saudi club up north dangling on a string.
Weeks ago Eddie said in a press conference at the Adidas HQ that he hoped to have a couple of new players on the plane to Japan, so you’re not telling me he’s a happy smiley person at the minute either.
When you add in Schar’s ridiculous red card on Saturday the need for a RCB is even more pressing than it was.
That’s not all we need either, going deep into the season with two Ashley purchases in Murphy and Almiron is not progressing the squad. If one of them was a bench option then ok… but not the pair as our only right sided options.
We need an upgrade in that area and someone who comes into the starting 11 as soon as he’s “Eddie Fit” and ready to play for this Newcastle United side.
One other area we are still light in is CDM and this summer again was the time to raise the bar here. I think our starting three are brilliant with Bruno, Tonali and JL7 but who backs them up? At the minute it’s Longstaff, Willock (is he even a midfielder? More likely another LW) and one of the Mileys. I’m sorry but that’s not good enough to be top four and have long cup runs, especially with suspensions and injuries.
So today (Wednesday) there are 10 days left in the transfer window for Paul Mitchell to redeem himself and provide Eddie Howe with the resources needed to sustain a three pronged challenge on Champions League qualification and both Cups.
We need a minimum of two quality players and hopefully another couple of good back ups.
Anything less than that then for me it has been a disappointing window. Keeping our existing players is standing still, no matter who they are, or how good they are, it is not improving.
How many of us want to stand still after 60 years of underachieving? Not many I would guess, so let’s put Saudi Arabia PIF under pressure to get the chequebook out by giving them top class options to buy.
Like most people there are numerous names swirling around in my head but my suggestions are Chalobah for £25m, McTominay for £30m and Mbeumo for as much as it takes, because he offers so many options across the front three, £120m should secure those three with two or three to leave.
I think the removal of the captaincy and demotion to the bench of Trippier, means a decent offer will be accepted, fringe players like Ashby, Lewis, even Targett should bring in circa £20-£25m giving a net spend of £100m, still less than I thought we would spend, but it would upgrade what we currently have.
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