Eddie Howe has claimed Newcastle’s domestic rivals are refusing to help them since their Saudi-led takeover - and hiking transfer prices.
The Saudi owned club spent £115m in the summer transfer window, taking their outlay this year to more than £200m on eight players. But Howe failed to add any new faces on deadline day and the club has no players on loan despite making several bids and said: “We are against everyone else.”
Newcastle have believed they face a tax from selling clubs since the controversial takeover which means they have the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia providing funding. The club tried to counter this by publicly insisting they only had a limited budget this summer, but ended up spending double what was “expected”.
Newcastle failed to land top targets including Leicester forward James Maddison, Leeds winger Jack Harrison, and loan approached for West Ham defender Harrison Ashby and Arsenal's Ainsley Maitland-Niles were rebuffed. Howe admits other clubs are working against Newcastle - and vowed his side will ignore being unpopular as long as their own fans enjoy their football. The United manager said: “Domestic clubs didn’t want to be seen to be helping us. We’ll have to take that, that is part of where we are at the moment. I think we have certainly found there is no one there, ready to do us a favour.
“It’s the narrative regarding us that has changed. I think if there is anything domestically teams will put their price up if it is Newcastle. That is the same around the world, that is something we are having to deal with. That is why we have walked away from a few deals because I think it is important we are not seen as that club that will pay what is asked. I think it has to be fair.
HAVE YOUR SAY! How do you rate Newcastle's transfer business? Let us know in the comments section
“There is a real feeling of us internally knowing we are against everybody else. That is healthy and I would embrace that. I will take that if we are contenders, but we have that all to prove. We are so early into the season. We need to elevate ourselves in points and league status to make sure we are seen as that. If that makes us unpopular I will take it. Do I care if the club is popular? I care that the club is seen and the team is seen in the right way. As in we behave in the right way, we conduct ourselves right. We play the game hard but fair.
“All I can try and do is produce a team that our own supporters are proud of. Yes, we want to play attacking football, yes, we want to play aggressive football, we want our supporters to come to games and get value for money and get entertained. Aside of Newcastle, what people think of us – that is not my concern.”
Assessing United’s transfer window where Alexander Isak, Sven Botman, Nick Pope and Matt Targett were signed he added: “You have to look at that positively. Breaking your transfer record is not something we set out to do, it’s about the player and that was the cost of the player we love. We think Alex Isak is going to have a huge impact here and we have to go with the demands of the market. It shows we’ve been backed by the board and they’ve really helped us with that signing and that’s a great thing for us. FFP definitely was a big hurdle for us to deal with this transfer window. We have gone over the guidelines given. I’m not sure whether it has affected future budgets, that’s not for me to answer. But we have slightly exceeded where we wanted to be.”
