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Opinion

The reasons why Newcastle United might be struggling to bring in new players

4 years ago
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Newcastle United have so far brought in only two signings this summer.

With 12 days to go until the season kicks off, free transfers Mark Gillespie and Jeff Hendrick have been the only additions to this NUFC squad.

So why might Newcastle United be struggling to bring in the essential new signings?

Like most Newcastle United fans, I am hoping that the club can manage to bring in players to improve the squad before the transfer window closes, however, there are a number of reasons why I think we might struggle to attract any decent players.

Mike Ashley

This is the man who wanted to spend £40million on Joelinton but quibbled about paying half that amount for Miggy Almiron.

You know that Mike Ashley has the ability to scupper any potential transfer.

Ambition

One of the reasons that footballers give for moving to a new club is ‘they want to win something.’

This clearly doesn’t apply to Newcastle as Lee Charnley has previously made clear that the club is not interested in winning trophies, instead just surviving in the Premier League.

He might have changed his tune in public since then but this it is clear that this is still the ‘ambition’ of our club under Mike Ashley. It’s not the sort of thing that’s likely to attract an ambitious and talented footballer.

Other clubs may be looking at the same players

As soon as I read that we’re in competition with other clubs, especially if they’re another Premier League club, I write off our chances of signing that player.

You know we’re not going to be able to compete with other clubs on a number of levels.

The Facilities

One of the levels in which we can’t compete with other clubs is in the state of our training facilities.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when a potential new player is being shown around the training ground and he’s told ‘this is our state of the art paddling pool and this is our state of the art wheelie bin which we fill with ice when you need to cool off.’

The empty ground

One of the reasons players sometimes give for wanting to join Newcastle United is it means they’ll be playing in front of 50,000 passionate fans every other week.

With social distancing measures still in place this is unlikely to occur again for quite some time.

In some ways the virus crisis will help Mike Ashley because he can put the gaps in the crowds at SJP down to social distancing rather than the total disillusionment with his regime. The question is, what will happen when there are no longer any restrictions on attendances?

The longer you leave it the harder it gets

Most well-run clubs try to get their transfer business done early in the window.

Of course this doesn’t apply to Newcastle United and the longer we leave it the harder it may be to sign the right players.

For one thing if the selling club senses that Newcastle United are desperate to sign their player, especially if we get off to a bad start in the Premiership, they might hike up the price.

There may well be other desperate clubs wanting to sign the same player and if it turns into a bidding war or a long drawn out negotiation, Mike Ashley may well just walk away.

So although I’ll continue to look at articles in the papers and on the internet about all those quality players we’re allegedly interested in signing, I’m not confident about seeing any of those players in a black and white shirt.

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