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No Geordie flops
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Newcastle United look set to make another blockbuster signing this summer, with Nottingham Forest winger Anthony Elanga reportedly on the cusp of making a move to Eddie Howe’s team. While the 23-year-old winger has developed into an excellent Premier League talent, the price that Newcastle are having to pay to sign the former Manchester United prospect has certainly raised a number of eyebrows. According to the BBC, Elanga’s move to St James’ Park will cost no less than €64 million - making the young forward Newcastle’s second most expensive signing ever.
That, undoubtedly, is a lot of money for a player that joined Forest for just €16m a little more than two years ago. However, if there’s one club in England that seems to be remarkably good at pulling off big-money moves and avoiding the well-trodden pitfalls of Premier League clubs spending remarkable sums of money on flops, it is Newcastle. And when we take a quick glance at their biggest ever signings, that only becomes abundantly clear to fans and critics alike of the Saudi-owned club.
Newcastle’s impressive record with big signings
As we can see in the graphic above, Elanga’s move to Newcastle will place him second only to Alexander Isak’s €70m move from Real Sociedad and ahead of Sandro Tonali’s €58.9m move from AC Milan. To no great surprise, the Geordie club have spent some significant sums of money in recent years, but it’s worth noting how many of these players have gone on to be excellent servants to Howe’s team and undoubtedly worth every penny spent. It goes without saying that both Isak and Tonali are excellent players for Newcastle and among the very best in the English top-flight in their respective roles. Similarly, Harvey Barnes and Anthony Gordon are important players for Howe’s attack, while Joelinton and Bruno Guimarães are crucial cogs in Newcastle’s midfield engine. And in defence, Tino Livramento (€37.2m), Sven Botman (€37m) and Lewis Hall (€33m) are all solid and necessary players in Howe’s plans.
There are of course some players that maybe weren’t worth the transfer fees paid for them. Chris Wood certainly wasn’t worth the €30m Newcastle spent on him and Michael Owen’s high-profile €25m move form Real Madrid in 2005 never quite lived up the billing, despite a relatively respectable 30 goals and two assists in 79 games. But if these two players are the only notable flops in Newcastle’s top 15 biggest signings then it certainly suggests that the St James’ Park side have a far better record than most Premier League clubs when it comes to spending big on star players.
Quality over quantity at Newcastle
While some of the aforementioned transfers go all the way back to 2005, the majority of Newcastle’s biggest deals (10 of the top 15) have come since the club was bought over by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) in October 2021. However, while many expected the Geordie club to go on an unprecedented spending spree, the Premier League’s Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR) rules have severely limited the club’s spending power. As such, Newcastle have had to sell players to compensate for the money they’ve spent. And, surprisingly, since the start of the 2022/23 season, the club’s net spend in the transfer market is only the ninth highest in the Premier League - behind clubs like West Ham and Nottingham Forest. However, while Howe himself has admitted that such regulations have “dramatically” changed the club’s transfer strategy, it may have actually forced Newcastle to build a stronger and more coherent team.
As we can see in the graphic above, which shows which English clubs have signed the most players since the aforementioned takeover at St James’ Park, Newcastle have made just 21 signings since the 2022 January transfer window. That, surprisingly, places them 13th among all clubs in England, behind clubs that have won promotion since then like Burnley, Forest and Southampton, but also aspiring mid-table clubs like Aston Villa, Tottenham and Brighton. Remarkably, Newcastle have signed less than half the number of players that Chelsea have signed in that same period of time and spent less than a third of what their Stamford Bridge counterparts have thrown at new players. And despite that, just three points separated the two clubs in the league last season. One club clearly took a scattergun approach to the transfer window, while the other took a more careful and considered approach, prioritising quantity over quality.
The Eddie Howe factor
Of course, scouting players and identifying which ones are worthy of big transfer fees is one thing, but it’s another thing entirely to get the very best out of them in the most demanding league in the world. To do that, clubs need a manager that can specialise in getting the very best out of the players available to him and there are few better man-managers than Howe in the English top-flight. Who, like Newcastle’s over transfer policy, seems to have benefitted from the constraints placed on the club in the transfer market.
Last season Howe only used 24 players over the course of the club’s 38 matchdays. Only one other club in the Premier League (Nottingham Forest: 23) used fewer players, as Howe guided the club to fifth place off the back of some excellent performances from his most trusted players. Out of his 11 most used players in the league, only Hall was signed that season, with many being at the club before Howe took over, such as Dan Burn or Fabian Schär, or signed soon after like Guimarães or Nick Pope.
This, in turn, has led to a number of Newcastle’s key players developing and going from strength to strength at the club due to their guidance under Howe and his subsequent reliance on them. As we can see in the graphic above, many of the club’s typical starting XI have seen their market value skyrocket under Howe since they made their debuts for the club. Whether it be younger players like Lewis Miley (+€25m) that came through the club’s youth ranks or established stars that arrived on huge fees like Tonali (+€10m), Guimarães (+€50m) or Isak (+€90m), Howe has made each and every one of them a better player since they first stepped on the pitch for Newcastle. And that’s the real secret behind Newcastle’s impressive record in the transfer market.
