"There's no ceiling for Newcastle. Congratulations. Some other clubs have ceilings."
Since Jurgen Klopp uttered those words, Liverpool have signed Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai at a cost of around £135m. Clearly, it is not just Newcastle who can do major business in the transfer market.
The point Klopp missed at the time was how Dan Ashworth was speaking about there being 'no ceiling' to Newcastle's ambitions rather than the club's spending power. In fact, in the same set of interviews last October, the sporting director warned that Newcastle's outlay in the transfer market was 'unsustainable' because of Financial Fair Play restrictions.
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It may seem rich to say this when Newcastle have just announced the signing of Sandro Tonali, who cost around £55m, but FFP is still affecting what the Magpies can and cannot do - even after finishing in the top four. Newcastle simply can't behave like the so-called 'richest club in the world'. Not yet, anyway.
Howe has said, himself, that Newcastle are not 'huge payers of wages in the Premier League so the big clubs will all dwarf us' and that makes it 'hard to attract the very best players on the market'. James Maddison, for instance, will earn more at Spurs than he would have at Newcastle because of the club's wage structure. Newcastle could have offered Szoboszlai an increase on his terms at RB Leipzig, but Liverpool are also in a different league when it comes to salaries. Liverpool's most recent set of accounts confirmed only Manchester United had a higher wage bill in 2021-22.
Yet those accounts also revealed the secret behind Liverpool's FFP operation: club-record revenues of £594m. To put that figure into context, it is more than three times the amount Newcastle generated in the same period (£180m).
Central to Liverpool's huge turnover was a £247m rise in commercial revenues with eight new sponsorship deals announced in that time. Although Newcastle's commercial incomes more than doubled, to £26.5m in 2021-22, this was a drop in the ocean in comparison. Yes, Newcastle have caught up with Liverpool on the field, finishing four points clear of Klopp's side in fourth place, but the Magpies, clearly, still have a huge gap to bridge off it following years of neglect in the Ashley era.
Finishing in the top four will be a game-changer, when it comes to changing the commercial conversations with partners and boosting hospitality sales, but becoming a permanent fixture in the Champions League will be the ultimate goal in the years to come to truly unlock those revenue boosters. Liverpool, for instance, have sat at Europe's top table in each of the previous five seasons - reaching two finals and winning the competition in 2019 - and the Reds have maximised the associated commercial opportunities.
Liverpool have also traded well in that period, which has led to the club's net spend comparing favourably with their rivals in recent years. Liverpool brought in around £59.5m last summer from the sales of Sadio Mane, Takumi Minamino, Neco Williams and Ben Davies. Going back further, Christian Benteke (£27m), Mamadou Sakho (£24m), Dominic Solanke (£19m), Rhian Brewster (£18m) and Danny Ings (£18m) have all been sold for noteworthy sums. Who could forget the £105m Liverpool banked when the Reds sold Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in 2018?
Newcastle, in contrast, went four years without raising an eight-figure transfer fee before Chris Wood's loan move to Nottingham Forest was made permanent. It is not sexy, but becoming good traders will enable the club to bring in more players like Tonali. And raise that ceiling.
