According to The Mirror’s North-East reporter Simon Bird, Steve Bruce was initially going to be given £50m (plus money raised from players sales) to spend on new blood for next season if a takeover failed to go through.
Bruce, however, fears this summer transfer budget will be cut, and Bird’s piece explains just why.
He states it’s set to be reduced because club income of £170m last year will tumble, like many rivals, because of broadcast payment reductions and season ticket refunds that have come via the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Telegraph’s Luke Edwards has also weighed in on this subject stating, “as things stand, Newcastle will have around £30 million to spend this summer, plus whatever is raised through player sales, as the transfer kitty, that should have been roughly £65m, has been slashed because of losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.”.
Here’s what Bruce has had to say on it all:
“I would envisage our budget is not going to be as big as what it was going to be in January before all this started.
“There are big discussions to be had but we are still always trying to go and find another player or two or three or four.”
So, £50m plus may become £30m and therefore begs the question what sort of quality are we going to get for that kind of money? Ex-Nice midfielder Arnauld Lusamba on a free is within that budget and £5m for Danny Rose I still believe is decent business, but not at anything above or around the £14m figure that’s been mentioned.
Then of course there’s recently linked David Turnbull from Motherwell. Exactly! Now Turnbull might be a superstar in the making and the next John McGinn but it might say all you need to know about Brucey’s budget and how he’s going to spend it if we’re shopping in Scotland and looking at freebies from France.
With just FIVE days to go until the transfer window opens, it doesn’t pain a very fruitful picture should a Saudi takeover collapse, does it? How are we supposed to sign the goal scorer we so badly need if Bruce has just £30m plus player sales to play with? Frightening.
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