Eddie Howe has warned Newcastle United are not necessarily looking at January being a 'massive help' like it was last season.
Newcastle signed Kieran Trippier, Bruno Guimaraes, Dan Burn, Matt Targett (loan) and Chris Wood last January, who all played their part in the Magpies staying in the Premier League. Newcastle's owners did not originally plan to be quite so active in the mid-season window, because it is a traditionally difficult month to do business in, but they felt compelled to act because of the club's perilous position in the table at the time.
Newcastle went on to sign Alexander Isak, Sven Botman, Nick Pope and Targett (permanently) in the summer - taking the club's spending to around £210m in 2022 - and sporting director Dan Ashworth said last month that it was not sustainable for the club to continue to splash out such amounts every year. Howe previously admitted, himself, that the black-and-whites had 'slightly exceeded where we wanted to be', when it came to Financial Fair Play, and the Newcastle boss was unsure at the time if that spend affected future windows.
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Newcastle are attempting to boost commercial revenues to enable Howe to continue to strengthen the squad within the regulations and the Magpies boss will hold talks with the hierarchy to discuss finances, budgets and what might be possible in the January window. Unlike the previous era, Newcastle will at least be in a better position, financially, to act if the right deal becomes available in 2023.
On the field, too, Newcastle are guaranteed to be in third place in the table at Christmas and Howe was asked how significant that strong start to the season was when it came to potentially going for it in January.
"I don't think we're quite looking at it in that way in terms of the window being a massive help for us," he told BBC Radio 5 Live. "It's early to have those conversations. We haven't had any internally with the club in terms of what direction we go in January - if even at all with Financial Fair Play.
"The key thing for us is that we come back and the spirit is not damaged. The group is in such a good place at the moment. Everyone is fighting for the same cause. The level of the group, what the players are producing is very high, and we do have players to come back and help us even more, which is the exciting thing."
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