The term 'medium club' does not do the monster that is Newcastle United justice, but Nasser Al-Khelaifi could just so easily have been referring to the Magpies at an FPF Football Talks event in Lisbon earlier this week. The Paris Saint-Germain president said that 'some of the big clubs want to stop the medium clubs becoming bigger' because they are 'scared of the competition'.
The Premier League's elite may have ultimately withdrawn their support for the shameless Super League proposal last year, but the reality is that certain clubs still do not want to see the top six one day become the 'big seven with Newcastle ' as Chelsea owner Todd Boehly previously predicted. Eddie Howe was the first to admit that 'the narrative regarding us has changed' and that was never more apparent than earlier this summer.
Howe was among those senior members of staff at Newcastle who felt that Premier League clubs were putting up the price of targets when the Magpies came calling. Brendan Rodgers, for one, was only half-joking when the Leicester City boss quipped that £40m 'might just cover three-quarters' of James Maddison's left leg while Angus Kinnear, the CEO of Leeds, said that one offer the club received for Jack Harrison would only be enough for his right leg.
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Newcastle even noticed a shift in perception in the loan market. In the final years of the Mike Ashley era, when Newcastle had very different ambitions, the black-and-whites were able to loan Joe Willock from Arsenal; Kenedy and Christian Atsu from Chelsea; Danny Rose from Spurs; and, even, Islam Slimani from Leicester City. However, according to Howe, clubs were not prepared to 'do us a favour' this time around.
"Domestic clubs didn’t really want to be seen to be helping us," the Newcastle boss told reporters last week. "We’ll have to take that. That’s part of where we are at the moment.”
It is important to stress that some clubs have opened the doors - Man City, for example, gave Newcastle owner Amanda Staveley a tour of their facilities earlier this year - and the Magpies have previously done business with Brighton and Aston Villa. However, Newcastle are certainly no longer viewed as a side slogging it out in the bottom half.
In a way, it is a compliment. Why should Newcastle expect clubs just to accept offers well below their valuations when the Magpies have ambitions to one day compete at the top end of the Premier League?
That change in narrative has been felt on the field, too. It was only last week, after all, that Newcastle were booed off by Liverpool supporters after the visitors very nearly left Anfield with a point after unsettling Jurgen Klopp's side by running the clock down.
The reception only brought an already tight-knit group even closer together and Dan Burn even went as far as to say it had given Newcastle 'added motivation' as the Magpies look to upset the established order in the years to come. It could just spur them on.
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