PSR disaster strikes Newcastle United – Nightmare

In partnership with

The Mag

·30 November 2024

PSR disaster strikes Newcastle United – Nightmare

PSR has really done for Newcastle United.

The way football is now set up, especially at the top end, it is all about stopping those who want to try and break up the eternal party that the Premier League elite are enjoying.

Video OneFootball

The massive financial gap in power that the ‘big six’ enjoy, doesn’t always translate into league position.

However, league placings are temporary, financial advantage is permanent.

That is largely (entirely?) due to bad decision-making by some of the usual six.

With the financial advantage they enjoy in terms of ability to have much higher wage bills and transfer activity, ensures that any league slippage, certainly falling outside the top six, is almost always only very temporary.

The ‘big six’ can employ the wrong managers and buy the wrong players, yet it has no real lasting effect.

Due to how much more money they can generate compared to the rest, that advantage will always eventually tell.

It is a bit like playing Monopoly when you have the least money and properties, you can get around the board a fair few times maybe, but eventually you land on an expensive property with a hotel on it and they are back in charge, whilst you are effectively bankrupt.

I couldn’t get down to Palace today due to family duties, so I watched it online.

I thought we battled well and carried luck at times, but the last half an hour or so I thought we game-managed really well and I felt for Joelinton when he switched off with just a minute to go. Losing his man and failing to jump to head away a regulation cross into the box.

This match only made me think about Newcastle United and how much they have suffered with this PSR disaster.

This summer taking away all momentum.

Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners had to totally rebuild the team and squad after a decade and a half of Mike Ashley and Bruce’s cluelessness in the final years of the evil one’s reign.

Having to also face an instant mid-season inherited relegation fight, had added just a huge extra weight on top of everything else.

The emergency rebuilding of the transfer windows January 2022, Summer 2022, January 2023 and Summer 2023, had exhausted all the PSR stretch. There had basically been nobody for them to sell that would help, apart from the £23m generated by ASM. The very small handful of players who would have generated an OK transfer fee were all needed. If sold they would have simply had to be replaced.

So with the PSR situation, Newcastle United got to January 2024 and couldn’t buy anybody, then got to Summer 2024 and not only were they so limited in their spending, they actually had to sell players they didn’t want to! For PSR reasons, nothing else.

Eddie Howe has performed miracles, in terms of getting so much out of those players he inherited, plus the money spent has given the Newcastle United owners incredible value for their investment.

However, PSR has caught up with NUFC and wrecked all momentum.

Consider today’s matchday squad that faced Crystal Palace:

Pope, Livramento, Schar, Burn, Hall, Tonali, Bruno, Willock, Gordon, Isak, Joelinton (SUBS Dubravka, Trippier, Osula, Jacob Murphy, Almiron, Kelly, Wilson, Longstaff, Barnes)

Before today’s 1-1 draw, the consensus was that this was Newcastle’s strongest matchday squad for a long time. Look at the bench people were saying, most options we’ve had etc etc.

Matt Targett and Lewis Miley had been given minutes with the reserves last night to help get them nearer match fitness. With Botman, Krafth and Lascelles the only injuries. Out of those five, only Botman would get into today’s matchday squad.

Now take a long hard think, a deep breath, then really look at it. Today’s squad at Palace. Look at the bench. Especially the bench.

On the bench Newcastle United had five players inherited from the Ashley/Bruce regime, free transfer Kelly, £10m raw striker Osula, 34 year old Trippier, plus Harvey Barnes.

It is an illusion/delusion.

Newcastle United DO NOT have a strong matchday squad.

We basically have a good team IF all the parts are working properly and maybe a few subs who can be relied upon to any significant degree, most/some of the time.

Due to PSR, it all felt a bit back to the Ashley days, in terms of Eddie Howe simply having to bring some squad players in to make up the numbers on a very tight budget, whilst our ‘rivals’ were spending (and spending) yet again.

Back in the Rafa days, the budget squad players brought in were to try and help him avoid relegation.

Yet crazily, some Newcastle United fans still have this outlook that despite all the PSR evidence in front of their eyes, Eddie Howe should be expected to automatically have NUFC competing this season.

This despite the only new first team squad players who arrived this summer having been free agent Kelly, £10m raw young striker Osula, plus the Vlachodimos deal that was simply to give Forest a PSR boost, in part return for the high PSR price they paid for Elliot Anderson.

Eddie Howe needed to be able to bring in some extra/new first-choice players into his starting eleven this past summer BUT could only afford basic money to add squad numbers as other squad members left. YET some fans so over the top in their criticism of Eddie Howe, as though he had brilliant first-team options all over the place.

Look at the size of squads and options that the likes of Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool have.

Whilst as for Chelsea who make the rules up as they go along, their reserve side cost half a billion and all players signed since Eddie Howe arrived at Newcastle. Look at all their spending again this summer, Chelsea could probably put three strong teams out!

Where would we and Eddie Howe be without the contributions of the likes of Pope, Schar and Burn, all excellent at Palace today AND week in week out.

Schar bought for £3m by Rafa and Howe paying £23m for Pope (£10m) and Burn (£13m).

Look at this subs bench once again today… Dubravka, Trippier, Osula, Jacob Murphy, Almiron, Kelly, Wilson, Longstaff, Barnes.

I reckon that if Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners had been able to have any kind of decent spending power, then this past summer we would have seen Dubravka, Trippier, Jacob Murphy, Almiron and Wilson all leave. Whilst I doubt very very much whether Osula and Kelly would have been signed.

Which leaves Longstaff and Barnes from today’s bench.

Imagine if say Newcastle United hadn’t had PSR pressures and had been able to spend say £100m this summer, plus whatever they could have generated for the likes of Dubravka, Trippier, Jacob Murphy, Almiron and Wilson, plus saved wages and so on.

Not a great amount, maybe £130m-£140m or so, nowhere bear what others spent.

For starters, Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh would have been in today’s matchday squad, not playing for Forest and Brighton this weekend.

I think maybe £15m-£20m would have been spent on a new young keeper to compete with Pope. No Vlachodimos brought in.

A new young quality central defender (maybe Guehi, or whoever, if Guehi had been bought this summer I think we would have had to have a significant sale of a current high-value player to afford him) to go straight in the first eleven. No Kelly brought in.

A new first-choice right winger.

A new young striker with a good playing/scoring CV already, to back up Isak. Osula not bought.

This is what Newcastle United and Eddie Howe needed.

The next much-needed stage of the squad overhaul. Instead, we have totally stalled, lost momentum, purely due to PSR.

Imagine if we could have added Minteh, Anderson and those four summer signings (that could/would have been) outlined above.

I have no doubt that Eddie Howe and the recruitment team had any number of targets in their sights, just not able to pay the transfer fees and wages, due to the PSR restraints.

You have to laugh.

The claims are that the PSR are there to stop things becoming uncompetitive for other clubs.

Trying saying that to Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle United and so on.

Any short-term success is so difficult (impossible?) to sustain unless you are one of the ‘big six’ who have created their financial dominance over so many years, doing everything they can to favour that small group of clubs at the expense of everybody else.

Newcastle United and Eddie Howe DO NOT have a massive financial advantage over the likes of Palace.

Then as for West Ham and Forest, they both spent more on signings than Newcastle these past three seasons (2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25).

This is the reality.

Crystal Palace 1 Newcastle 1 – Saturday 30 November 3pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Guehi OG 53

Palace:

(Half-time stats in brackets)

Possession was Newcastle 51% (57%) Palace 49% (43%)

Total shots were Newcastle 1 (1) Palace 16 (5)

Shots on target were Newcastle 0 (0) Palace 4 (0)