'They can't' - Simon Jordan hands Newcastle United brutal reality check after Liverpool £35m transfer hijack
Newcastle United transfers: TalkSPORT’s Simon Jordan has hit out at the club after Liverpool hijacked the signing of Victor Munoz.
Newcastle United have been dealt a brutal reminder of their place in the football pecking order this past week, according to talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan.
The Magpies had a deal lined up to sign Victor Munoz from Osasuna only for Liverpool to trigger the winger’s release clause and sign the player instead.
With the failed transfer came a sense of deja vu for Newcastle, who missed out on several top targets in the early weeks of the summer transfer window last year. The club were also embroiled in a prolonged transfer saga involving Alexander Isak and Liverpool which concluded with them selling the striker to the Reds for a Premier League record fee on deadline day.
Is it happening again to NUFC?
When asked why is it ‘happening again’ to Newcastle this summer, Jordan refuted that suggestion and instead highlighted the market the club are shopping in trying to compete with the Premier League’s elite.
“Well, you make that argument [of it happening again], but you look at the clubs that it's happening to them with,” Jordan said on talkSPORT. “If you made the argument that happened to them with Aston Villa, if you made the argument that happened to them with one of the sides that would finish around Newcastle, you can start to say, well, hang on a second, how is your processes?
“Why are you able to be taken advantage of by players or more importantly, equal-footing clubs? But there is a scenario when you're talking about four, however they've got there, legacy clubs.
“So Newcastle are in a terribly invidious position. We know this, we've rehearsed this discussion 100 times over. They can't break into the top six, despite the protestations of their chief executive [David Hopkinson] rambling on about how they're going to win the league in the next five years with no methodology behind it because they can't get the finances and they can't buy the players and they go around in a circle to get into the top six.
“You need to have big, big ability to spend. They've got the ability to spend, but PSR says, ‘oh no, you can't’. So if it were, as I say, with all due respect to Aston Villa or someone of that ilk, if it were a club that Newcastle were on an equal footing with to some extent in people's minds, I'd say, how's that happening?
“But when Liverpool come in or Man City or even Chelsea, most clubs are at a disadvantage. So that's the nature. We characterise it as it's happening again at Newcastle.”
Alexander Isak sale
Jordan then highlighted the manner in which Newcastle transfer stories drag out in the media, with the sale of Isak being a key one last summer.
He added: “First of all, Newcastle made a song and dance out of it with [Alexander] Isak. They should have sat Isak down and concentrated his mind and said to Liverpool, you pay £125million now or you're not getting him. That's why it got protracted [because they didn’t].