George Caulkin has been speaking on Pod on the Tyne about the profile of players Newcastle United are now looking to sign.
So far Newcastle have managed to secure three new signings that arrive with a mixture of Premier League experience and youth, especially Sven Botman who could be one that grows alongside Newcastle under the ownership of PIF.
However, their attempts to reduce the average age of their squad, in particular the forward line, have been fruitless thus far with Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak seemingly out of their reach this summer.
Caulkin believes that from now on this is the way PIF want Newcastle to do business, recruiting young players who can grow with the club, instead of ones already at or past their peak.
(52:35) “We do have that confidence now that players who are brought into the club won’t just gradually get worse as they get older, but can be given the sort of territory and landscape to kind of grow into and get better.
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“So that is something that they want to do, they want to bring people in, they want to increase their value and at some point Newcastle will do business, you know, selling and buying because all clubs do that whether it’s Man City, whether it’s whoever and that’s an important part of Newcastle’s development.
“They can’t just end up with players who are 31 or 32 and have no sell on value, they have to develop players for themselves, either bringing them through themselves like with Elliot Anderson or by bringing people in.”
TIF Thoughts on Newcastle’s transfer strategy…
This mentality and transfer plan appears to have changed quite quickly by PIF for Newcastle as only a few months ago in January they brought in a 30-year-old striker in the form of Chris Wood and a then 29-year-old centre-back in Dan Burn.
However, now it seems like they are thinking of the bigger picture and with more time to plan and also with Dan Ashworth at the helm, PIF and Newcastle could strike up some much smarter deals that help them in the here and now, but also look to make the club a large profit in the future if a bigger club comes in for such a player.