· 3 June 2025, 13:00
**Newcastle United are set to miss out on another transfer target to Manchester United, with Bryan Mbeumo likely to follow Matheus Cunha to Old Trafford.**
We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether or not the players' decisions make sense given the difference between the two clubs last season in terms of both on and off the pitch, but the fact is, money talks.
There's also this idea that Manchester United are still a huge club, which I suppose they are, but they really are just surfing on the legacy created by Sir Alex Ferguson - they've not done anything particularly noteworthy since the legendary Scot left, and their trajectory, in every measurable way, has been downwards.
However, somehow, they still have the finances to pay players extraordinary wages, despite being in piles of debt and having no European football to bail them out next season.
Newcastle are way too slow out of the blocks when it comes to transfers
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Eddie Howe has told the board to act fast, he's told the press that he's told the board to act fast in the hope that they would, well, act fast.
> “Speed is key for us, which I’ve reiterated many times internally.
>
> “Speed is key because we have to be dynamic, we have to be ready to conclude things very quickly, because good players don’t hang around for long."
This was Eddie Howe just last week speaking about the need to move quickly to sign the best players.
I have gone full "Angry man yells at cloud" today
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Would it have made any difference to the Mbeumo situation? Probably not. The club were in talks early on, but Mbeumo was greedy and Newcastle wouldn't be on.
However, that also brings up another point that Eddie Howe raised, and that's that Newcastle will struggle to sign 'established' players because of the wages involved.
Perhaps he was hinting that Newcastle needs to accept that their wage structure isn't fit for purpose. I know that's more a PSR thing than a board thing, but Man United clearly aren't worried about PSR, so why are we?