Darren Eales drops biggest hint yet on Newcastle United’s summer spending power - supporters take note

Newcastle United CEO Darren Eales has dropped the biggest hint yet that the Magpies will loosen the purse strings in the summer transfer window.

Eddie Howe has been unable to add a senior, first team recruit to his ranks for the last three windows, with Premier League PSR regulations wrapping Newcastle’s finances up in red tape. For context, the only significant business done in the last 18 months has been Lewis Hall’s loan deal from Chelsea being made permanent - and that happened two full windows ago.

The Magpies have been hamstrung by their spends in previous years, with PSR calculations only allowing for a £105million loss per club, per three-year accounting period. Newcastle have always been right towards the red line on those calculations - and Eales insists the club will continue to operate in that sphere, maximising all of their headroom to spend every penny and give Howe the biggest possible budget.

And Eales, when discussing the club’s 2023-24 accounts - released today - and the three ‘lean’ windows, dropped a hint that the next one, which opens up in June, could be different.

What can Newcastle United spend in the summer transfer window?

He said things are set to get ‘easier’ to spend, moving forward.

“It's a bit of movable feast because we obviously have a lot of factors that will go into what we do in the summer and it's an evolving process in terms of where players are in the current squad who are looking to potentially move on and who we're going to bring in,” he said.

“We're going to have the factor of what revenues do we have next year and are we in Europe, where do we finish this season? All that goes into the question but the good news is when I talk about PSR it's always a yearly cycle so you can see that we had to do our housework in these windows. In these financial accounts - 23/24 - we had to do what we had to do, that year was a good year for us in terms of PSR and it's still part of our three year cycle.

“So the good news is it gets a little bit easier once you have a good season like we had in these accounts to invest in the future but the amount will depend on a lot of factors. It is a new cycle, and that's good news for us.”

‘It’s about getting the right players’

One of the major moves of the summer last year was the addition of Paul Mitchell to the club’s senior executives.

It is the type of move that will always take time to reveal the fruits of his labour, but Eales thinks the club will be in a much better place heading into this summer window for having Mitchell and Howe working together.

On the Mitchell dynamic, Eales said: “We're in a good place. We're pleased with the business we did in January in terms of our transfer outgoings. Being quite open, that's something in the past that's been challenging for us in terms of making those player transfers out. That was good for us in terms of that window.

“Paul and his team have had a period of time now working with Eddie as well because, ultimately, it's about getting the players that Eddie wants in his position so there's real alignment in that respect so we're excited about the summer ahead.”

In other news, ‘Crazy’ - Newcastle United send official warning to Arsenal and Liverpool over Alexander Isak transfer.