Gabby Agbonlahor rages at spending rules after Spurs drop £100m on Sandro Tonali - He's spot on
Mark this day in your calendars. Thursday 2nd July 2026 is the day that NUFC Blog agreed with talkSPORT's Gabby Agbonlahor.
It's not often we, or indeed any Newcastle United fan, care for anything former Aston Villa striker Gabby Agbonlahor has to say, but he has gone on an epic, emotional rant about the fairness around the Premier League and UEFA's financial restrictions that was absolutely spot on.
Both Newcastle and Villa have just been hit with fines from UEFA for breaching their financial regulations. Newcastle got off lightly compared to Villa, who got hit for the second season in a row.
We spoke about the fact that your reward for achieving domestically is a punishment from abroad, making it hardly worth trying to do well.
Gabby Agbonlahor is spot on for once
After Tottenham Hotspur finished 17th in the Premier League for two seasons in a row, they have spent nearly £250 million already this summer and aren't done yet, while Newcastle and Villa are getting punished for trying to improve.
Gabby Agbonlahor took to talkSPORT to point out how this cannot be fair. Co-host Andy Goldstein, whose job it is to provide a counter-argument for the clicks, tried to give the other side of the argument but just made himself look silly because what Gabby was saying was spot on.
"Spurs have finished 17th two seasons in a row. How can they go and spend £52m on (Jan Paul) Van Hecke, Tonali will be £100m, Fernandes will be £85m, Free transfers for (Andy) Robertson and (Marcos) Senesi. Big big wages on all five of those players and then teams like Aston Villa who have just won the Europa League are getting fined £90m. It's a joke!
"How can clubs like Villa get to the next level? What's the point? The rules are terrible.
"It's that bias. That so-called top six bias. Clubs like Aston Villa and Newcastle can't buy anyone."
We don't care that Spurs can spend. We care that Newcastle can't.
It's not that Gabby, or anyone else, has a problem with Tottenham spending the money they are, it's their money, do what you want, it's the fact that Newcastle and Aston Villa can't spend that money. They have it. Their owners have it. They could spend it without going into debt. FFP was brought in to prevent clubs from going too far into debt, and we appreciate that, but our clubs wouldn't if our owners were allowed to fund the club.
Goldstein's argument that if they sold the club, the new owners may not be able to handle the bills is absolutely ludicrous. What businessman would buy an asset they couldn't afford to run? At the very least, they'd ensure that all debts and liabilities were sorted before they put their name on it.
Every time something like this comes up it just becomes more and more clear what FFP/PSR/SCR was designed to do and how well it does it. It's the big organisations protecting their cash cows and keeping everyone else in line by artificial means.
By the way. Still no news on those 115 charges for Manchester City, but they've just bought Elliot Anderson for £116m.
