Eddie Howe cuts a relaxed figure when asked about Newcastle United's prospect in the transfer market these days.
Howe is in an envious position to those who came before him in the United hotseat with strong backing from the club' Saudi backers and the belief that Newcastle chiefs mean it sincerely when they say they are reaching for the top. During the Magpies' festive jaunt to Riyadh, it wasn't just Howe and the players who boarded the SAUDIA Dreamliner that headed from chilly Tyneside to balmy desert conditions.
A 100-strong party of officials flew out to the Middle East with sporting director Dan Ashworth, CEO Darren Eales and CCO Peter Silverstone some of the high-profile passengers who set off for a series of business meetings in the plush PIF buildings in illustrious Riyadh. This all seems a far cry from Mike Ashley's transfer summits in the Orange Tree pub in Totteridge or his service station meetings with Joe Kinnear back in the day.
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Thankfully, those days are history now and Newcastle have every intention to maximise the potential at St James' Park on and off the field. That not only includes exploring every available avenue from a commercial sense, to ensure revenue is driven hard and FFP is adhered to, but also ensuring Howe has the best squad of players available to him.
In just over a year, Howe has transformed the Magpies from relegation fodder into Champions League challengers. Backed with £200million he's snapped up Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Bruno Guimaraes, Chris Wood, Sven Botman, Matt Targett, Nick Pope and Alexander Isak.
Only Isak through an injury, and Targett through stiff competition are currently out of the team but Howe has also ensured that signings he inherited have been utilised brilliantly. Players like Miguel Almiron, Joelinton, Fabian Schar and Sean Longstaff have dovetailed into his starting line-up.
But what next? One thing is for certain, Howe isn't in a position where he has to buy untested and untried players at the top level. The days of taking a punt on signings like Ayoze Perez, Luuk de Jong or Facundo Ferreyra are also gone.
True, eventually, some players like Perez did come good and handed Ashley what he was truly looking for, a big transfer fee at the end. But shopping in the bargain basement only led to life in the budget aisle of English football with two relegations in Ashley's long-winded sorry story on Tyneside.
Howe said it best in Riyadh as he sat down amid the palm trees of the club's upmarket hotel, and commented earlier this month: "In my position, you are keen to sign the best players you can - but those players come at a premium, as you know. Botman wasn’t cheap, Alex wasn’t cheap. Those are players who can influence the starting XI."
Of course, FFP will play a big part in what happens next but I do expect some wheeling and dealing to be done. Some players will be moved on but a freshen-up will take place.
Newcastle no longer require major surgery like they did this time last year, they just need some fine tuning. January can also be a long month but by the end of it, United will be sitting on the 20-match mark with the 18-game final straight ahead of them.
They will know if they are in strong contention for the Champions League places or not by the end of this month. If they can keep up their remarkable form, that little bit of extra star quality might be just enough to bag a first Champions League place since 2003.
Howe is geared up for the transfer window and made his views clear the other day when he told journalists that when he's sitting at home scouting a player, he's not just doing it for the sake of it. When it gets to the stage of him taking a good look at a player, then that target is at the business end of a possible move and it will be whether the financial boxes can be ticked or not.
The former Bournemouth manager's view was clear at the start of the month when he was pressed on transfers and said: "As a manager I am always looking to improve the team. I will never sit here and be content - I don’t think that is the right way to manage. My way to take the team to new heights is to improve through the training of the players we have.
"If we can’t get to a certain level then we need to find that in the transfer market."
The "certain level" that Howe is talking about is the exciting part for Newcastle fans, in the meantime fans can rest assured that United do mean business these days in the transfer window so January could be far from a blue month at St James' Park.
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