Newcastle United’s ludicrous end-of-season trip to Australia tells you everything you need to know about the financial hurdles the club still have to vault as they attempt to catch up with the Premier League’s elite.
Alan Shearer might have branded the seven day tour “madness”, but when you’re struggling to break out of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability shackles, for a payment of around £2.5m, the sum i understands Newcastle have banked for two friendlies and some commercial work, there is a cold, hard logic to it.
A fed up Kieran Trippier summed up the weary resignation of the squad at the prospect of playing two friendlies more than 10,000 miles away when he called it “not ideal” last week but Newcastle’s commercial team have been told to double revenue every two years to support the club’s ambition to challenge the elite. After a season of blood, sweat and tears, sweating the asset is the only way.
The players will grin and bear it but it is PSR that means there is an unsettling air of uncertainty over Newcastle this summer.
Without financial fair play the Magpies would be emphatic in the market: a right winger, versatile young forward, two centre-backs and a new goalkeeper would be easily sourced. But the way things look right now, accommodations will have to be reached to make those deals happen.
Even those familiar with the overarching recruitment remit in the close season – “Improve, target quality and move us forward decisively,” one insider tells i – can’t predict the shape of the team that will kick off the next Premier League campaign in three months’ time.
Eddie Howe was not bluffing when he spoke of “uncertainty” around summer transfer plans after the team signed off a draining campaign at Brentford, even if he played down fears that Bruno Guimaraes was waving goodbye to the Newcastle support when he paused to wave at the massed ranks in the away end at the Gtech Community Stadium.
Everything orbits around the Brazil midfielder for the next few weeks, with his £100m release clause active until the end of June. To those of a nervous disposition, his post-match demeanour in West London might have been cause for concern.
It’s probably best not to dwell too much. Those sort of theatrics are part of Guimaraes’ appeal and nothing new. His tears at Wembley after Newcastle lost to Manchester United in the Carabao Cup final last February were typical of a player who wears his heart on his sleeve and the word from the club has been consistent. He is not agitating to leave St James’ Park and has not presented as a player with his eye elsewhere.
But it’s also worth noting that there are people in his entourage who are hardly playing down the prospect of either Arsenal or Manchester City giving Newcastle a headache by tabling a bid for him this summer. Whether either would extend to triggering his £100m release clause is the real issue: if neither does, Newcastle won’t let him go – even if Arsenal sources nurse a belief that a deal can be brokered later in the summer for less as a way of evading their own PSR limits.
If he stays, Newcastle can build around him. If he goes, they will need to rebuild but financial analysts believe a £100m sale would give them £80m of PSR headroom – enough to buy “three or four” high calibre players to replace him. Newcastle would invest “every single penny” if the worst happens and he departs but that would pave the way for a hectic summer of wholesale change. There are no guarantees they would emerge from that stronger, even if they have reinforcements.
At least there is less doubt about Alexander Isak, who will be offered a new contract in the summer to reflect his status as one of the Premier League’s leading forwards. At just 24 there is genuine excitement about the levels he can hit next year – and work will go into him in pre-season to eradicate some the fitness issues that prevented him from showing his best in the Champions League campaign.
Elsewhere, the word is we should prepare for “surprises”. The club’s front-line targets – it has been suggested – are yet to emerge in public and their apparent willingness to work on a deal for Aaron Ramsdale suggests Newcastle could yet confound.
On the face of it, that deal makes little sense given the high regard they have for Nick Pope. Arming Arsenal with funds also bolsters their confidence in doing a deal for Guimaraes, but if Newcastle have to be bold this summer rather than cautious, perhaps challenging orthodox thinking is going to become a theme.
The uncertainty around Newcastle even extends to whether they will be playing in Europe next season. After a difficult final week of the season the Magpies rallied on Sunday to fulfil their part of the bargain with a win at Brentford but are now relying on Manchester City to complete the double to book a second successive season of European football.
There would be real enthusiasm about a campaign in the Europa Conference League next season on Tyneside but financially speaking, the benefits are fairly negligible. A modest uplift in their sponsorship deals thanks to clauses negotiated with Sela and Adidas are probably the best they can hope for, along with seven-figure gate receipts for home games.
“Conference League football isn’t really worth it from a financial point of view, perhaps until you get to the semi-finals the prize money on offer is relatively modest,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire told i.
“However that’s ignoring the fact that should Newcastle qualify they will have a minimum of four, potentially five, home games which will be worth – realistically – £1m to £2m in terms of gate receipts. And there also could be step ups from sponsors.”
For Newcastle it is more about prestige, growing used to the rhythm of midweek games and establishing themselves as regular fixtures in European competition. Plus – as one insider pointed out correctly – “it’s a competition we feel could win”. That counts for something, even in a Premier League ecosystem dominated by financial equations.
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