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1 month ago
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Eddie Howe is now nine days away from naming his Newcastle United team to face Southampton.
Pre-season preparations complicated by the fact that the European Championships and Copa America tournaments, meant delayed returns for a number of players.
Added to that is Sandro Tonali can’t join in the Premier League action until Spurs at home on 1 September.
Whilst of course carried over injuries from last season are problematic as those players work towards a return, then new injuries to the likes of Lewis Miley and Callum Wilson not exactly helpful.
All of this means that there is even more focus on the transfer window for many Newcastle United fans, hoping for signings to help in the long-term and especially the short-term.
As things currently stand, we have seen longstanding club servants such as Paul Dummett and Matt Ritchie not offered another contract, whilst young squad players Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh were sold for a reported combined £68m at the end of June, as a £50m+ PSR shortfall had to be addressed.
In more opposite news, around £50m has been committed on the following:
Lewis Hall – Chelsea, £28m
Odysseas Vlachodimos – Nottingham Forest, reported as £4m
Lloyd Kelly – Bournemouth, free
John Ruddy – Birmingham, free
Miodrag Pivas – FK Jedinstvo UB, Reported to be £1m
Will Osula – Sheffield United, reported as £10m plus £5m potential future add-ons
That last signing was announced this (Thursday 8 August) morning just as Eddie Howe was beginning his press conference ahead of this weekend’s friendlies.
Just 22 days to go now until the 2024 summer transfer window slams shut at 11pm on Friday 30 August
Eddie Howe spelling out the realities of budgets and priorities, when asked why he had signed a young inexperienced player in Osula to develop, rather than a more expensive ready-made attacking option:
“With Alexander Isak and Callum Wilson hopefully both fit for the majority of the season and carrying that attacking load together. When you have a sum of money to spend, you are logically not going to spend a huge sum of money in that position, when you have other positions that maybe require a bit more investment.
“A very difficult balance.”
Eddie Howe refused to say what stage the potential signing of Marc Guehi was at BUT he was prepared to confess that a central defensive signing is a big priority in these next three weeks:
“We are slightly light on numbers in central defence.
“Emil Krafth has done a really good job during pre-season, playing inside from his normal full-back position.
“He has the capability of doing that.
“We have got very good players (in central defence) but naturally, when you lose players like Sven Botman and Jamaal Lascelles, for the length of the time that we have, that is big dent in the middle of our defence.
“Two huge losses.
“I think that the lads that came in at the back end of last season [in central defence] did very well but it is certainly an area we are looking at [in this transfer window].”

 
