Journalist confirms Rafa Benitez's summer transfer budget - Good and bad news for NUFC fans
According to the Chronicle, Rafa Benitez has been handed an initial £40m to spend this summer, but that figure looks set to be topped up significantly when the likes of Mitrovic and Mbemba are sold - meaning he *could* have a healthy budget if all goes to plan.
This initial spending pot of around £40million' seems pretty low as spending Premier League spending goes (especially when we NEED a proven striker who'd cost at least half that), however this is has to be seen as good news and bad news.
It's good news if we receive £20m for Mitrovic, £8m for Mbemba and one or two million here and there for the likes of Sels, Lazaar, Colback and Saivet. That could mean Rafa has £70-£80m to spend - a healthy budget IF Ashley gives him £40m PLUS every penny from player sales.
The bad news is that we can't guarantee that Ashley will do that and we can't be sure that we'll actually have clubs match our £20m and £8m asking prices for Mitrovic and Mbemba respectively. If sales didn't go nearly as well as planned then we're stuck with a very limited budget and a big wage bill.
Another issue is how we receive these payments for outgoing players. I'm quite confident we'll sell around £30-£40m of unused talent, but if the incoming payments are staggered then it's an issue and it will reflect negatively on Rafa's budget.
For example, let's say Fulham agree to pay £21m for Mitrovic. Sounds great, but they may only pay us £7m a year for three years - so you can be sure Rafa wouldn't be handed anything near the sale price.
https://twitter.com/NUFC360/status/1007946583793655808
Let's see what happens. £40m plus player sales of £30-£40m could, in theory, give us a healthy budget of around £70m this summer, but we all know it's NEVER that logical and simple when Ashley's involved.
