Newcastle cannot be ‘adamant they will not overpay for players’ while only targeting those who come with a Premier League premium. Eddie Howe warned them.
When Premier League clubs have managed to spend a combined £561m by mid-June over 12 days across two transfer windows, it becomes increasingly difficult to preach the importance of patience and restraint.
Six clubs have yet to sign a first-team player this summer.
Arsenal are deliberating over their final-jigsaw-piece striker, with a deal for Martin Zubimendi essentially wrapped up.
Crystal Palace have their hands tied in administrative red tape, their Europa League qualification status as yet unknown.
Fulham typically conduct their business late before eventually bringing in a slew of players and also Willian.
Nottingham Forest will sign any number of Botafogo gems after the Club World Cup.
Wolves have a time-honoured policy of selling all their players in a relegation-tempting dash before calling Jorge Mendes and a mid-season manager in a mild panic to ultimately survive comfortably.
Which leaves Newcastle, the unthinkably rich football club approaching a devilish 666 days since their last first-team addition, unable to make a single transfer decision of any consequence without shaking in a corner and muttering to themselves about PSR headroom, cabals of a particular colour and unjust rules as the eternal realisation sets in that they will never have the same transfer pull as even the worst version of Manchester United.
It is possible to piece together a lucid image of an average day of operations at Newcastle from the information drip feeds afforded so far by the usual sources. It involves Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall actively seeking out fellow employees in the corridors of the club’s training ground, taking turns to insist to them, completely unprompted, that they are ‘adamant they will not overpay for players’ or be taken advantage of with ‘a so-called Saudi tax’. And it is hilariously damning.
“Speed is key and I have reiterated that many times internally,” Howe said in his final press conference of the season, with a place in the Champions League chaotically secured.
“We have to be dynamic, we have to be ready to conclude things quickly because good players don’t hang around for long,” he added; Matheus Cunha, Liam Delap and Dean Huijsen certainly didn’t when the Magpies knocked a little too late.
Those early setbacks crystallised Newcastle’s place in the football food chain as two or three steps below the most desired destinations in Europe. It is a position some fans rally against while looking up; the club itself has embraced that status when gazing down.
Somebody has clearly drawn up a list of the best players outside the Premier League elite. The Magpies admire Joao Pedro. They think highly of Antoine Semenyo and have assessed Mohammed Kudus. Anthony Elanga is well regarded. Marc Guehi has been discussed. Illia Zabarnyi has been considered. James Trafford is appreciated.
This one-eyed focus on Premier League experience and insistence on avoiding extravagant fees cannot coexist seamlessly – and certainly not when Newcastle engineered the most ludicrous £20m deal last summer for Nottingham Forest’s banished third-choice keeper.
In the same way the Magpies would want nine figures just to start the bidding on Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon, your Brightons, your Bournemouths and the Crystal Palaces of this world similarly want to be suitably reimbursed for their work in identifying, signing and developing talents.
They will scoff at Arsenal and Liverpool for sniffing around Isak but cakes are being had and messily eaten at St James’ when haggling over the best of what they can feasibly sign from the Premier League’s attainable rest, those not pursued by the ever-insulated Big Six.
With those deals comes a premium. Newcastle can believe themselves to be different and unique when taking the ‘adamant they will not overpay for players’ stance, as if the opposite attitude exists and there are clubs – other than the generational institutional shambles at Manchester United – who insist on paying above market value for every target. But it makes their shortlisting specifically of players who come with such a surcharge seem like a laughable waste of time.
Howe and his team having a philosophy centred on players with a Premier League background is not inherently foolish; it makes perfect sense in many ways considering the necessary time to settle when moving to a new country with different teammates and a distinctive playing style.
But cutting out that acclimatisation period always comes at a price. And when Newcastle’s best players are a Swede signed from Spain, a Brazilian bought from France and an Italian plucked from his home country, all without ever having played in England before, the fan frustration at such insularity is understandable.
There is ample time for the outlook to change, but the triumph of coaching that defined last season is in danger of being spurned with each passing day. If a trophy and Champions League qualification opened doors in the transfer market, Newcastle are yet to walk through them.