Newcastle United correspondent Liam Kennedy has been speaking on the latest edition of NUFC Matters to discuss all things relating to the Tyneside club.
The main talking point was the recent appointment of Eddie Howe as the replacement for Steve Bruce, which was announced on Monday afternoon.
Is £50m enough for NUFC in January?
Yes
No
Attention will now turn to keeping Newcastle in the Premier League after a torrid start to the season which sees the Tyneside club still searching for their first league win of the season.
With the January transfer window on the horizon, there is a lot of speculation as to what the Toon will be able to do, with their new owners set to take on their first transfer window in charge of the Magpies.
However, in order to bring in some new faces, funds will have to be allocated and Kennedy has provided some insight as to the rough figures the fans could expect to see spent in January, with £50m being the reported budget.
He said: “All the little bits that I’ve heard, it sounds about right. And I think there’s a lot of people getting in a bit of a twist about it and I don’t really see it, I don’t see what the problem is.
“If the new owners were to put in the region of that per window, every single window – £100m spent per season – that would be up there with absolutely everybody in Europe, effectively, if you put that in consistently every single window.
“It’s about building. Newcastle United do not – and this is absolutely certain on this – do not need to go and sign £50m/£60m players in January. It’s just a recipe for disaster. Look, I would rather they went out and spent on five £10m players, getting the value right, looking for players whose contracts are up.”
TIF Thoughts on Newcastle’s transfer plans…
We agree with Kennedy in the thinking of Newcastle benefitting more from signing more players of a lower valuation rather than spending the majority of their transfer pot on one individual.
The Toon currently do not have a win to their name and have already conceded 24 goals this season in the league, which would suggest there needs to be some serious reinforcements to their defence in January.
Something which would also likely affect the possibility of signing huge money players is their current league position.
Would a £50m player realistically sign for Newcastle United, who are currently mixing around the bottom of the table? We feel that would be on the unrealistic side, so targetting cheaper players would be a more feasible option.
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