Newcastle were faced with an extremely difficult set of circumstances last summer, with Alexander Isak’s protracted exit to Liverpool plunging them into turmoil and creating a need to sign attacking replacements very late in the window.
However, even accounting for those issues, eyebrows were raised when the Magpies ended the summer having spent more than £200m to sign Nick Woltemade, Yoane Wissa, Anthony Elanga and Jacob Ramsey.
Six months into the current campaign, and it can definitely be argued that none of those signings have been an unqualified success, with Woltemade and Wissa scoring eight Premier League goals between them, Elanga only scoring his first goal as a Newcastle player on Wednesday night and Ramsey having failed to hold down a regular place in the starting XI.
There are mitigating factors behind the quartet’s struggles – Wissa and Ramsey have both missed sizeable chunks of the season through injury – but given Newcastle’s ongoing PSR issues, the decision to spend around £210m on four players who have failed to live up to their billing is already having far-reaching repercussions in terms of the club’s ability to make future signings.
Howe accepts there will always be scrutiny on the club’s transfer dealings, but citing Lewis Hall as an example of a player who took time to settle into life on Tyneside and find his feet, Newcastle’s head coach insists it is still far too early to be making a definitive judgement on what happened last summer.
“I always say with transfer windows, I think it’s a better reflection in time,” said Howe, who was speaking ahead of his side’s weekend home game with Brentford. “Even short term, players can do well, but it’s time that will be the judge.
“I don’t know the exact on that, on when that becomes a fully justifiable analysis, but for me, it’s too early to make strong conclusions from that transfer window. At this moment in time, I’d probably say let’s see where we are at the end of the season, and then even six months into next season too.
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“I think you’ll have a clearer idea then because you can look back at Lewis Hall’s transfer and go, ‘Well that didn’t work initially’, but for me that was always a long-term signing. That’s also true of various other players we’ve signed through the years – Anthony Gordon also took time to become the player that he is now.
“Patience is needed, although it’s a rare commodity these days with transfers. I understand that with the outlay, people will go, ‘You shouldn’t need patience and understanding’. But I’d say with most transfers these days, I think there has to be an element of that.”
This has been a topsy-turvy season for Newcastle, with fine runs in the cup competitions – a play-off place in the Champions League, a run to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup and an FA Cup fourth-round tie against Aston Villa coming up next weekend – masking extreme inconsistencies in the club’s league form.
The Magpies have struggled to cope with the demands of competing on four different fronts, with their position in the bottom half of the table ahead of tomorrow’s game with Brentford suggesting they face an almighty fight to try to secure a place in the Champions League again next season.
For all that David Hopkinson might be talking of “consistently challenging for the top prizes in global football” by 2030, are Newcastle still at a stage of their development where they do not have a squad that is strong enough or deep enough to sustain a viable challenge on multiple fronts?
“Possibly, as a football club, we are still adjusting and we need to be better at certain things,” said Howe. “That evolution will continue over time. I think this has been an unprecedented amount of games. I think I can say that, because of the long run in the Carabao Cup and the Champions League play-off we have to go through.
“There is an extra burden on us that we have created ourselves by trying to go deep into competitions and give our best in every moment. We won’t get much praise for that, but that has impacted some of the performances when we haven’t been as clear or as sharp as we want to be. But it is in pursuit of excellence and in the pursuit of trying to win a competition and a trophy for the club.”