Speaking on The Overlap, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher have been discussing Newcastle’s summer business heading into the 2023/24 Premier League season.
The overwhelming message from both is that we’ve made no ‘wow’ signings, believing moves for Harvey Barnes and Tino Livramento are players we could’ve brought in even if we “finished 8th.”
Carragher questions if the additions have “excited” fans on Tyneside – despite Barnes and Tonali being “goo players” – and Neville agrees, questioning how long we’ll stand by “Eddie Howe signings” who aren’t particularly big names. Neville “hopes it persists”, but wonders if our Saudi-backed owners will push for marquee names in time; something Howe may not like from a dressing room perspective.
You can read their quotes in full below. For me, they miss the point, not just forgetting FFP but the ‘if it isn’t broke don’t fix it’ nature of our recruitment. We may have rich owners and Champions League football back at SJP, but our transfer record has been outstanding since Howe came in, seeing us pick up underrated domestic talents (Pope, Gordon, Burn) or European gems (Bruno, Botman, Isak) that arrive with character and the quality to improve.
We recruit players able to learn and grow, not ready-made stars with big egos and even bigger wage demands. Just because we finished in the top four doesn’t mean our successful transfer policy should suddenly change? Our Premier League rivals don’t need to be ‘wowed’ by our business – but they’ll have certainly taken note of our dramatic improvement on the pitch. See Carragher and Neville’s exchange in full below:
Jamie Carragher –“I was looking at the signings. When you look at them and where Newcastle are now financially and in the Champions League, has it really excited the supporters?
“They feel to me like Eddie Howe signings where he’s looking at players and thinks ‘they’ve got great potential, I’m a great coach and I’m going to make them even better’.
“But I don’t think they’re the type of signings that will make the rest of the Premier League go wow.”
Gary Neville – “I felt the same as you a little bit about the signings. I hope it persists, the owners and the coach are aligned in terms of how they think they’re going to get to the top. Obviously that’s where they want to get to, to be Premier League champions.
“Are they willing to go slowly all the way through the journey and improve gradually each year where they might even go back a little bit, or is there going to come a point where they think we need those big players? We need that manager.
“Do you think they will be aligned for the next two or three years, or do you think it’ll be a case at some point they’ll blink and they will want those £100 million signings that Eddie Howe may not want as they might disrupt the wage bill and the dynamic in the dressing room? I think it will be really interesting to see how patient they are in the next year or two.
Jamie Carragher – “I think those three signings will get better with Eddie Howe but it feels to me they are three signings that Newcastle could have made if they finished eighth. They are still the sort of players Newcastle would have been able to bring in. The fact that you have got Champions League, I thought…not a marquee [signing] or lots of money.
“You’ve got a player who’s not played for a long time who was at Southampton, Harvey Barnes from a relegated team, I think he’s a good player, obviously Tonali is from AC Milan. Of course that is one of those types of names, but I think the other two players, it was nothing about getting in the Champions League that maybe elevated who they could bring in. They are players who they’d have brought in.”
They forget the FFP constraints which means it has to be block by block building.
The big six who were able to spend as they wished almost and were not handicapped by a greedy owner who was prepared to run the club into the ground means we just can’t close the gap with blockbuster signings.
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