Newcastle United owners have bought a Premier League team but not a… | OneFootball

The Newcastle United owners have now been in charge for 41 months and two days.

Buying the club from Mike Ashley on 7 October 2021.

Eddie Howe was appointed a month later, following the belated sacking of Steve Bruce.

Saturday (8 March 2025) marked exactly 40 months at the club for Eddie Howe.

The final hurrah for Steve Bruce came on 17 October 2021, a 3-2 home defeat to Tottenham. Newcastle United with only one shot on target all match, Eric Dier managing to score a bizarre own goal for United’s other goal.

This was Steve Bruce’s final matchday squad:

Newcastle United:

Darlow, Manquillo, Lascelles, Clark, Ritchie, Sean Longstaff (Shelvey 60), Hayden, Willock (Murphy 77), Saint-Maximin, Joelinton, Wilson (Fraser 77)

Unused Subs:

Gillespie, Schar, Lewis, Fernandez, Hendrick, Gayle

When Eddie Howe arrived in November 2021 (Graeme Jones having taken charge of three Premier League matches following Bruce’s sacking), it was universally agreed that Newcastle United were getting relegated. It would have made it a third relegation in the 13 Premier League seasons that Newcastle had kicked off under the ownership of Mike Ashley.

After the mess left behind by Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce, fair to say that reviving the flatlining Newcastle United was going to take serious surgery.

A chronic lack of investment in the playing squad and terrible decision making, meant the inheritance Eddie Howe received was lacking, to say the least.

These eleven who were in Steve Bruce’s final NUFC matchday squad have since left Newcastle United – Darlow, Manquillo, Clark, Ritchie, Shelvey, Saint-Maximin, Fraser, Lewis, Fernandez, Hendrick, Gayle

In normal circumstances, somebody arriving to take charge of a Premier League team would look to raise significant money by selling unwanted players, to add to whatever funds the club’s owners would make available.

ASM was sold for £23m and the other 10 generated only around £5m between them. Indeed, eight of them went on frees or had to be paid off, with only Shelvey (£4m-£5m) and Darlow (£400,000) bringing in anything.

On top of those eleven in Bruce’s final 20 man matchday squad, Hayden and Gillespie are still on NUFC’s books but won’t generate any transfer fees either.

The reality is that apart from a very small group of players who were desperately needed to be kept to stand any chance of avoiding relegation and possibly beyond, there was absolutely nobody who could be sold to generate transfer funds and give extra PSR flex.

Indeed, until June 2024, the only other serious transfer fee generated since the takeover, was the £15m brought in for Chris Wood, who Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners had been forced to pay £25m for in January 2022 as there wasn’t a single Premier League striker available at NUFC once Callum Wilson picked up a serious injury on 27 December 2021 against Man U. The then 30 year old Wood came in and survival was brilliantly avoided with the striker’s help, United picking up 29 points in his 15 PL starts that 2021/22 season. Wood playing an unselfish hard working role where he helped create space and scoring opportunities for others, rather than so much getting into those positions himself.

Other players that Eddie Howe inherited include Paul Dummett, Kell Watts, Matty Longstaff and Freddie Woodman, only the last named of that quartet generated a small transfer fee. Whilst in January we eventually saw Miguel Almiron move on after six years at NUFC, United doing well to generate around £10m from his sale.

All of the players that Eddie Howe inherited who have moved on, every single one has gone to lower English league football or weaker leagues abroad. With one exception… (see later).

It is a miracle really what Eddie Howe has managed to get out of some of the players he did inherit.

The likes of Sean Longstaff, Willock, Wilson, Lascelles, Joelinton, Jacob Murphy, Schar, Krafth, Almiron.

However, in so many of those cases, they have to play at their very maximum every game to be good enough and/or it could only last so long.

The reality was that major investment was needed and indeed you could say that Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners have bought a ‘Premier League team’ in these last seven windows and three and a half years…. (Well, they had to!)

Pope (£10m)

Livramento (£32m), Botman (£35m), Burn (£12m), Trippier (£12m)

Tonali (£53m), Bruno (£41m), Hall (£28m)

Barnes (£38m), Isak (£63m), Gordon (£45m)

That ‘Premier League team’ costing £369m.

A lot of money BUT considering the lack of proper investment for a decade and a half under Mike Ashley, not a great deal at all.

This season we have at times seen an Chelsea reserve side play in Europa Conference matches, entirely made up of bought in during this latest American ownership era, signed from the summer 2022 transfer window onwards and having cost them over half a billion pounds – for a second eleven…

Those American owners spending over £1.5billion in the last six transfer windows and that on top of a very expensive strong squad that Chelsea already had.

Chelsea now have a first eleven costing far more than the half a billion side named above, plus a third team as well you could name, that probably cost as much as that Premier League team Eddie Howe and the NUFC owners have bought.

This is the problem, PSR dictates that Newcastle United have been stretched just to buy that Premier League team, indeed, they had to sell young promising players Anderson (that one exception Eddie Howe inherited who has gone to a PL club) and Minteh just to stay within PSR ahead of this season.

There is no margin for error, for injuries, for wriggle room.

Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners haven’t been able to buy a Premier League squad as yet. Other than the ‘Premier League team’ bought in and named above, the only others at the club that have had transfer fees paid for them in these past three years who are in the current NUFC squad, are Osula (£10m), Targett (£13m) and the Vlachodimos (£??) PSR double deal that saw Anderson head to Forest.

When injuries happen to key Newcastle United players, Eddie Howe and his team are hit far harder than pretty much any other major team, as with rare exceptions, the drop to their replacements is far more severe.

I think the bottom line is that you are looking at a minimum of a couple of years and another four or five transfer windows, before there is a real Newcastle United squad to speak of. Plus, that will very much depend on making a lot of inspirational recruitment decisions in the meantime.