As the Newcastle United owners prepare to welcome Sandro Tonali as the club’s first signing of the summer window (18 year old Yankuba Minteh already signed but he will spend 2023/24 with Feyenoord on loan), I had a glance at the business at other clubs.
I think that the Newcastle United owners and the senior staff they rely on, continue to get things spot on with recruitment.
I highlight in particular our midfield.
A combination of stellar signings and excellent coaching have given Newcastle United a great midfield unit (to go with the defensive one).
Joelinton was never a striker but has been converted to a midfield enforcer by Eddie Howe and his staff, becoming an invaluable cog in the middle.
Countryman Bruno Guimaraes has been a star buy, Joe Willock has been steady and the transformation in Joelinton has been mirrored by the change in Sean Longstaff, whose potential is finally being realised. Sean is another that was mismanaged by the previous Head Coach and regime.
Italian Sandro Tonali seems to have one foot in the door and will only add to our options and depth in midfield.
This brings me on to the recruitment of others as a comparison.
Newcastle United were linked for a long time with James Maddison of Leicester City and, while I was sceptical about his character, his stats always added up. The fact that he’s moving to Tottenham Hotspur for a reported £40m and passing up Champions League football is one point, the reported wage of £180k a week quite another. The fee is more than reasonable, the wage? Not so in my book. There will be nobody at Newcastle United on that wage by the end of this transfer window.
I’m sure we would have been prepared to pay the transfer fee but if our recruitment team caught wind of the wage demands, it’s highly likely this is why the deal went no further.
Looking over the road from Spurs at Arsenal and it gets even more strange, with the imminent capture of Declan Rice. Lazy journalism reported ourselves as a rumoured destination for the England man and most sensible folk knew that it was never going to happen. The fee is astronomical and the wage just as outrageous from my point of view. Rice was apparently on £60k a week at West Ham but will reportedly be getting £240k a week at Arsenal after his £105m move across London. Unbelievable stuff. In fact, it’s ridiculously silly, especially considering he had just one year left on his contract with an option for another. When I read that you had to scrape me off the ceiling.
So for the same fee as Rice, we have gone out and recruited Bruno and now Sandro Tonali for roughly the same combined transfer fee and wages, as Arsenal have paid just to acquire Rice.
We have also utilised players that are already here and improved what we’ve got.
Adding Maddison into the equation and we’ve refused to bust our wage structure to levels that would have seen other players’ wages rise accordingly.
What part of that knowledge stacks up with nasty old Newcastle United throwing their new found wealth about logic?
Ever since the new (current) Newcastle United owners arrived, we fans have had “the Saudi money” line thrown at us and to be honest it makes absolutely no sense and doesn’t stack up to the bare facts, when faced with the Declan Rice deal.
Sure it has made a difference when put into context with how unambitious we were pre-takeover, but we are now competitive and we are doing it logically, and seemingly far cheaper than some would have you believe.
