It has been a case of evolution over revolution at Newcastle United in the first two transfer windows of the new era. Superstars such as Sven Botman, Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak have arrived as Eddie Howe has already overseen a significant squad overhaul.
The cumulative transfer spend in excess of £205 million has already transformed Newcastle's ambition from a perennial relegation battle to hope of European football. This investment is recognised as just the first step in a long-term project to elevate the Magpies into serious contenders for silverware in the coming years.
However, the 'richest club in the world' tag pinned to Newcastle following the Saudi-backed takeover last October has not stopped the club backing away from prospective deals. The Magpies refused to meet Sevilla's lofty demands for Diego Carlos in January, while the asking prices for Jack Harrison and James Maddison proved to be successful deterrents this summer.
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Eddie Howe insists the perception of Newcastle's newfound riches is 'not entirely accurate', with Financial Fair Play [FFP] concerns preventing the new owners throwing caution to the wind. Domestic regulations limit clubs to losess of £105m over a rolling three-year period, although this excludes investment in infrastructure such as the academy and community projects.
Premier League sides such as Newcastle with European ambitions also face stricter limitations from UEFA, with current rules insisting players' salaries can not exceed 90% of total revenue. The limit will be reduced to 80% for next season, and drop to 70% the following campaign.
This has not stopped certain fans and commentators questioning Newcastle's approach to recruitment, despite the arrival of nine first-team stars so far. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has explained why even at the infacy of the owners' tenure at St James' Park, they can ill-afford any major transfer flops.
The Price of Football podcast host told ChronicleLive: "The owners have got an incremental and evolutionary approach to player recruitment because unlike the position that was faced by Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, they now have to deal with the spectre of FFP. The problem with FFP is that if you spend big and get it wrong, you've got a legacy problem a couple of years down the line.
"The biggest examples of that are Everton and Leicester City, both of whom have spent substantially and that means you effectively put on the afterburners and go full steam ahead, and then you have to go and pull the handbrake very quickly. To me, the Newcastle approach especially with having somebody like Dan Ashworth involved is to improve the side over a period of time rather than take a scattergun approach.
"With FFP, what you can not do is have too many misses. If you look at City with Robinho, Jo... there were plenty of others when they first acquired the club. The response of the owners was we're happy to have this player sitting in the reserves or out on loan, and we'll still pay them £80,000 per week or more because there was no consequence."
Football and the Premier League in particular has quickly bounced back in the post-pandemic environment, with spending in the latest window reaching a record £1.9bn. Newcastle opted to obilterate their own record for Isak, but have otherwise looked to find value in deals from the continent and from domestic rivals.
However, that has evidently proven a tough task judging by the lofty fees exchanging hands for the likes of Antony, Wesley Fofana and Morgan Gibbs-White in recent weeks. The total Premier League spend in the latest window smashed the previous top-flight record by almost £500m, and this trend creates a fresh problem for the Magpies owners to navigate.
Maguire added: "Inflation in the transfer market is significant, and part of the problem is as Arsene Wenger always used to say, at the elite level you grow in millimetres, not metres. If you want to get a 1% improvement of your team's performance, it's going to cost you an extra 10% in terms of wages.
"You have to go for players who are better than those in your existing squad, and you therefore have to pay those players significantly more money. If you don't, Spurs or Chelsea or Manchester United will.
"The purpose of FFP is to prevent the creation of another Chelsea or Manchester City, because the elite clubs are anti-competitive. We saw that with the Super League, their aims is to ring-fence as much of the money generated by football from themselves.
"We're all aware there's a Newcastle tax in football, so how do you counteract that? If we were in a non-FFP era, perhaps you would pay that extra £10m being asked for. Newcastle don't want to hit the limit in summer 2022 as it will act as a hindrance next summer, and they're not prepared to go all in."
Newcastle have already been drawn into a host of protracted transfer sagas many did not anticipate when Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund became the club's majority owners. United played hardball with Lille and ultimately got Botman on their terms, while the demands of Hugo Ekitike's agent were said to have put the Magpies off a move for the Reims wonderkid before Paris Saint-Germain swooped.
Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan reckons Newcastle's concern over FFP is nothing more than a negotiating tactic at this stage. The talkSPORT presenter claimed the Magpies could spend in the region of £400m before beginning to worry about the regulations.
Maguire agrees with this estimate, but understands the restraint being shown by the club's owners. He said: "I've been quoted as saying similar myself.
"It's a bit like having a credit card, just because you have a £5,000 limit on your credit card is not necessarily a good thing if you immediately try to get that limit. You don't get a reward for spending money, you get a reward for spending money sensibly.
"I know some fans were expecting bigger spending and Simon is absolutely right that the club could conceptually have spent more, but if you spend all of your money in the first couple of windows and those players don't turn out to be very good, then you've got the problem of big wages and what do you do? I think that's the issues which some fans are either choosing to ignore or aren't aware of."
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