10 Newcastle United players permanently removed from wage bill since last NUFC signing
I don’t think anybody can be unaware of the fact that the first team squad of Newcastle United players hasn’t been added to this summer, so far…
Only just over a week to go until the Premier League kicks off and this is now looking ever more serious, day 57 of the transfer window and Mike Ashley refusing to allow essential strengthening ahead of the new season.
All the other 19 Premier League clubs having strengthened to greater or lesser degrees, including the three promoted clubs who have collectively brought in at least 16 players and spent significantly (compared to Newcastle United!) in doing so.
The last senior player Newcastle United signed on a permanent deal was Jamal Lewis back on 8 September 2020, some 11 months ago.
Something that hasn’t really been addressed or even mentioned by most, is the sheer number of Newcastle United players who have permanently left the NUFC wage bill since the Norwich left-back signed up.
So often in the past the media willing to suck up to Mike Ashley would happily put forward the number of Newcastle United players on the wage bill, as a supposedly valid excuse for not bringing in the players NUFC needed to sign.
As in…until Newcastle United can clear these players off the wage bill, there is no room for new signings etc etc.
Well, here are the 10 Newcastle United players who have now left the NUFC wage bill since Jamal Lewis signed in September 2020:
Dan Barlaser
Rolando Aarons
DeAndre Yedlin
Achraf Lazaar
Christian Atsu
Andy Carroll
Henri Saivet
Florian Lejeune
Elias Sorensen
Yoshinori Muto
At a conservative guess I would say that these lot must have added around £200,000 a week (£10m per year) to the Newcastle wage bill. At the other extreme, I think £300,000 a week (£15m a year) is the highest possible. On top of these, a host of younger players have also left the club this past 11 months.
Steve Bruce has already had to use a host of Under 23 players to fill the gaps in training and in the first team pre-season friendly squads, gaps made all the bigger due to injuries amongst the Newcastle United players who remain.
It is so disheartening to see, that on top of all the other nonsense that has come our way due to the first 14 years of Mike Ashley, we now have a transfer window where every other one of our relegation rivals is doing everything they can to strengthen, whilst Steve Bruce claims next to no money in the budget and fans need to be ‘patient’ in waiting for which loan players might be available very late on in the window.
When you consider that as well as clearing so many off the wage bill, Newcastle finished surely at least four or five places last season in the Premier League above what they expect and budget for financially from league placings, impossible to accept that signing nobody is anything but an unnecessary act of self-harm.
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