Transfer trouble at Newcastle: Time for a new strategy?

Post-takeover Newcastle United have not made a bad signing.

A comparison of the club's top five most expensive signings against their Premier League rivals demonstrates just how good the recruitment has been since 2021, as does a glance at Newcastle's first team which is stacked with high-valued quality. This is why Paul Mitchell's clumsy comments about the recruitment not being for purpose rankled so much.

But (at the risk of jumping the gun with six weeks of the current transfer window left) things are getting harder.

In his first interview of pre-season in Austria, Eddie Howe explained that a lot of work had gone into the transfer window with 'very little' reward. He backed this up after the Celtic friendly, saying it has been a 'really frustrating summer' and intimating that the club have been chasing players who haven't been sold on the idea of signing for Newcastle. he also said he is 'hopeful rather than confident' when it comes to future business.

Considering Howe used his final interview of last season to pointedly highlight the need for quick action in what is a 'massive summer', his latest remarks are cause for concern.

A key them from missed deals

Setting aside the Alexander Isak saga, which threatens to derail the summer and set the narrative in a direction that Newcastle do not want, it is clear that Newcastle have missed out on some key targets and are finding the going very tough.

Of the players Newcastle are widely believed to have held interest in, Liam Delap and Joao Pedro both joined Chelsea. Bryan Mbeumo made it clear from the beginning he was only interested in signing for Manchester United. Hugo Ekitike and possibly Marc Guehi look bound for Liverpool. James Trafford could well end up back at Manchester City. Dean Hujsen went to Real Madrid.

The clubs that those players signed for are either elite / high profile clubs, can afford to pay wages well beyond the means of Newcastle right now, or both. It is perhaps not coincidental that Newcastle had no competition to sign Anthony Elanga (which is in no way to suggest he won't be equally as good a signing as those that have come before him).

Part of the reason Newcastle have been so successful with big money signings over the last three years has been because players have been bought with a very specific skillset to improve the first team, they have had Eddie Howe's seal of approval, they have been the right age profile, and there have been stringent character tests to ensure they fit into the culture fostered by Howe.

Newcastle have also refused to go much over their value of a player, noting throughout that the 'Saudi tax' has made this more challenging.

The problem with the team getting better (and arguably consistently overachieving under Howe), is that the pool of players that can improve the team narrows, and those that are attainable invariably have interest from elsewhere. Newcastle are in the market for elite players, but have nowhere near the financial pulling power of the traditional 'big six' Premier League clubs yet. This remains a few years away at least, and the PSR necessitated salary structure that may be delaying a new contract offer for Isak is also prohibitive when competing with others for transfers.

This has resulted in what has so far been a frustrating transfer window of aiming high and missing, and the closer we get to September the more acute the need for reinforcements becomes. Nobody needs reminding that the squad was not prepared for the Champions League campaign in 2022/23. As things stand Newcastle are at least four signings (goalkeeper, centre-back, centre-midfield and forward) away from having a squad able to handle the demands of the season to come.

One of the key lessons of 2022/23 was that the squad needs bodies if only to give first-team players a rest. Right now there are less first-team squad players available than there were at the end of the summer transfer window two years ago.

A new approach needed?

There is a lot of conjecture and uninformed speculation about what may be happening behind the scenes, but it is not controversial to say that the upheaval at executive level over the last two years can not have helped.

This needs to be sorted out and it is imperative that Darren Eales' and Paul Mitchell's replacements are in the roles for long enough to ensure some stability and consistency, and that they can work with Howe, who is and will remain the most important figure at the club for as long as he is there.

In the meantime it is seemingly over to Howe, his nephew Andy and Steve Nickson to get the reinforcements in. No easy task with a season to prepare for.

It is obvious why Howe (and every other manager) might advocate a slightly more risk-averse approach to transfers given it is his job on the line if things don't go well, albeit he has worked miracles over the last three years and is rightly held in great esteem by his employers. But Howe knows how football works and he is very aware that there is no job security without success. Newcastle need to keep progressing.

Given the difficulties in the market with the current approach, it may be time for the decision makers to adapt to the market conditions and take a more flexible approach.

This could be pushing the financial boat out a bit further than ideal for a player they know meets their criteria (Trafford), relaxing their age profile and pulling the trigger on someone without resale value (Wissa), or looking further afield to Europe or beyond where character references are harder to source and players have no Premier League experience. Even then there are factors beyond Newcastle's control, but it feels currently like their parameters are too narrow and are restricting incoming business.

Eddie Howe's coaching has propelled previously written off players to heights that nobody would have thought possible. He's developed Jacob Murphy into a goal scoring and assist machine. He would surely back himself to be able to coach some new players into effective contributors for Newcastle, even if they are not quite at the technical, physical or psychological levels required to begin with. He has done this with the likes of Lewis Hall and Anthony Gordon and is now hoping William Osula follows a similar path, although another of the 2022/23 lessons was that the squad needs first-team ready players available. For various reasons it took 18 months for the summer 2023 transfer window to prove a success, and there is a strong argument that funds at that time may have been more effectively diverted to experienced players for the short-term at least.

Unlike the last three transfer windows, the large failed bids and the bullishness of Howe’s rhetoric shows that there is money available this time around. Now it is a matter of landing on a strategy to be able to spend it.

The clock is ticking.