Newcastle United may have spent very little this summer but they did use up a more precious commodity – credit in the bank with their supporters.
Faith in the decision makers – a given until now – has been sapped by the failure to land a single player who will lift the level of the first team this summer.
The bruising Marc Guehi saga – and the secretive, failed negotiations for four other centre-backs whose names weren’t in the spotlight – mean the pressure is now firmly on Darren Eales and Paul Mitchell, the director of football whose honeymoon period has been non-existent.
The club are aware of that noise, they acknowledge there is risk in being this cautious. Insiders insist, though, they have taken difficult decisions now to protect the club’s long-term ambitions.
“Getting the right players is more important than getting players right now,” one source told i earlier in the transfer window. That sentiment was repeated – several times – in a tense one hour press conference on Friday as Eddie Howe was left to face the music for the club’s failed pursuit of Guehi.
He swerved the blame game and tried to create a narrative of “Us against the world”, blaming crippling profit and sustainability rules (PSR) for the recruitment failures. And clearly, that has had an over-sized influence on their approach this summer – but so too has the caution that afflicts every department of the club.
Rather than twist and sell the likes of Miguel Almiron, Callum Wilson and Kieran Trippier – all good players with plenty still to give – Newcastle have opted to stick. That, combined with keeping hold of all of their crown jewels, has left them with limited PSR headroom and some big, big calls to make.
i has been told by football finance experts that the headroom, given increased revenue, Champions League prize money and sales, could have given them around £100m to manoeuvre with. Newcastle sources insist it is less than that but it was still enough for them to offer £65million for Guehi.
The problem was when the fee went up – and the payment schedule wasn’t one Newcastle wanted to do – they were unable to countenance what it might do to their future spending power. A move for Bayer Leverkusen’s Edmond Tapsoba, one of their alternatives, was simply beyond their PSR headroom capacity, it seems.
Among the fanbase, it is a record that badly needs to be changed and it is up to Eales and Mitchell to explain themselves now. We need more detail on the club’s PSR challenges, and a clearer roadmap for what comes next.
The problem with PSR – one of the many, many issues with such a flawed system – is how opaque it is. Only a privileged few in the legal and accounting departments at the Premier League and its member clubs really know what the arithmetic is, which is hugely problematic.
Those with knowledge of the inner workings at Newcastle knew there would be sales this summer but few appreciated the true scale of the deficit they had to claw back. Clearly spooked by the points deductions handed out to Everton and Nottingham Forest – and facing the prospect of losing 10 or more points themselves – they scrambled to broker sales from a position of weakness.
It was an experience that increased the resolve of those inside the boardroom that there could be no repeat of that in 2025. And while the noises were much more positive in July, it has obviously made everyone more cautious.
“Qualifying for the Champions League in 2022-23 created a party atmosphere at Newcastle but sometimes after a party there’s a hangover and that hangover has arisen in the past few months,” Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert, tells i.
He agrees with the assessment of Howe and Newcastle that PSR is a major dampener on their ability to spend.
“Not qualifying for Europe means a substantial hole when it comes to the finances although some of this will have been made up significantly with the deal with Adidas and other sponsors.
“The wage bill has significantly increased and because you have to look at clubs over a three-year horizon you have to look at the quality of players who have come in and the quality of those players.
“That has created a level of expectation for the Newcastle fanbase which haven’t been able to be repeated due to the constraints of PSR. It should always be remember that PSR and it’s other incarnations, FFP beforehand, were never there to create a level field for the Premier League.
“It’s very much a case of preserving the existing gaps between the hyper rich and the moderately rich as far as the ability to spend is concerned. For the sneaky six who created the Super League, they’re relatively happy it is doing what it was intended to do.”
But Newcastle have to learn mistakes from this failure of a window too. Their tactics and approach have been flawed, the focus on Guehi a mistake when Crystal Palace were clearly unwilling sellers.
Mitchell – a long-term appointment who will feel stung by his first weeks in the job – will know the pressure is on for January. Newcastle have acted like Fenway Sports Group, walking away from deals that aren’t quite perfect to save resources for future windows.
But whatever FSG’s failings at Liverpool, they have done some stunningly successful and swift business too. Newcastle need to find their Virgil Van Dijk under the Christmas tree – a swift, speedy deal wrapped up in stealth to return momentum to the St James’ Park project. If Mitchell is as good as they say, it should not be beyond him.
What looms large over the club now is the summer of 2025. Three of the players who started last Sunday are out of contract, another three on the fringes of the first team are also in the final months of their deals.
There should be no PSR scramble – if anything, Newcastle might be well placed to opportunistically take players from others – and they can player trade from a position of strength. Ambition still prevails, sources say.
But for the first time Newcastle fans won’t take them at their word. They need to see actions from now on.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/6DuFkNT
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