These Newcastle United signings aren’t happening – Wage demands rule them out | OneFootball

We are five weeks away now from Newcastle United kicking off in the Premier League.

To date, there have been four senior Newcastle United signings.

Lewis Hall changing status from loan to permanent, Lloyd Kelly a free agent, plus the two experienced goalkeepers in John Ruddy and Odysseas Vlachidimos.

Every day Newcastle United are linked with potential new signings, some regurgitated stories, some ‘new’ targets, some stories with seemingly no homework done whatsoever on them, but printed anyway for clicks.

Who Newcastle United are actually going to sign is anybody’s guess.

However, I know one thing for certain, Newcastle United is not signing Raphinha from Barcelona, as rumoured in the past few weeks.

Why?

Simple. His wages are well beyond what I think our recruitment team will be looking at.

Newcastle United are not buying anybody that would be automatically our highest earner, smashing our wage structure, especially while we are not participating in the Champions League.

Newcastle United are not looking at £150k – £200k a week players.

Links to players such as Chiesa, Raphinha, and Bowen are just pie in the sky.

I also believe the club is wary of bringing in someone on over £200k+ a week, as I think they’re conscious of the effect it would have on other players already at the club, seeing someone come in on a lot more money than them and as a result, you will get players demanding more money.

In short, I think someone coming in on such high money will cause unrest among the squad. I believe whoever our actual targets are, will be at the most on around £80k – £100k per week at their clubs.

As we see with most transfers, players will demand that bit more to make the move, greedy agents will drive the costs up too. So we are not buying players in the £150k – £200k per week range.

We’ve seen other rumours like Anthony Elanga, Cryscenscio Summerville and most recently, I’ve noticed Jonathan David.

Jonathan David is a very realistic target for Newcastle United. He fits the profile as well due to his age, he is pretty versatile and isn’t shy of grafting. The 24-year-old Canadian international has been a success to date in France and Belgium for Lille and KAA Gent with 121 goals in 266 appearances for both clubs. He is claimed to be on around £40k a week. In my opinion, he would be an excellent signing at around the £40m mark. He is in our range and fits our profile. So I think any stories on fanciful names like Chiesa, Raphinha, Bowen are simply non-starters for us at this moment in time.

Our market are players I think around the £40m – £50m mark in terms of transfer fee, but most importantly, I think the wages they’re currently on decide whether we pursue them.

Anyone currently on over £100k a week simply isn’t happening for us. The only exception to the rule to date is Kieran Trippier. Everyone else was on a lot less before joining the club. That I think is where we will continue to look. We will sign younger players with room to grow I think, rather than players who are more established on bigger wages.

So targeting players like Summerville, Elanga, and Jonathan David as they fit within our wage structure and each one would raise their values fairly quickly should they be a success for the club.

While I’d love someone like Jarrod Bowen, it’s just not happening.