Newcastle United’s Premier League transfer window: Cash spent, recouped, ins and outs assessed

Limited cash spent, as much saved as possible. That’s the overriding feeling among the Newcastle United fanbase following on the from the window that was. But who did leave and how much did that save - and what about the outlay on transfers, was it as much as has been reported and repeated elsewhere? Liam Kennedy looks at the issues.

Newcastle United transfer window - INS (scroll down)

Cameron Ferguson - unattached - free transfer; Remi Savage - unattached - free transfer; Charlie Wiggett - unattached - free transfer; Joe Willock - Arsenal - undisclosed; Santiago Munoz - Santos Laguna - 18-month loan

Newcastle United transfer window - OUTS

Owen Bailey - released; Lewis Brannen - released; Tai Ebanks - released; Ludwig Francillette - released; Lucas Gamblin - released; Josh Gilchrist- released; Josh Harrison - released; Florent Indalecio - released; Oliver Marshall - released; Tom Midgley - released; George Rounsfell - released; Kyle Scott - released; Jude Swailes - released; Yannick Toure - released; Oliver Walters - released; Christian Atsu - released; Andy Carroll - released; Henri Saivet - released; Lewis Cass - Port Vale - season-long loan; Florian Lejeune - Alaves - undisclosed; Yoshinori Muto - released; Jake Turner - Colchester United - season-long loan; Kelland Watts - Wigan Athletic - season-long loan; Matty Longstaff - Aberdeen - season-long loan; Rodrigo Vilca - Doncaster Rovers - six-month loan; Oisin McEntee - Greenock Morton - season-long loan; Tom Allan - Greenock Morton - season-long loan

Money spent

With undisclosed transfers and contract confidentiality the absolute norm, it really is impossible to say with any definitive degree of certainty just how much Newcastle United have spent or recouped in this window, however, it is possible to estimate, using widely regarded and known knowledge available.

Newcastle United added five players to their ranks this summer, it just so happens that four of those were for the club’s under-23 setup.

Nominal development fees and loan arrangement figures may have exchanged hands to land the likes of Remi Savage from former club Liverpool and Santiago Munoz from Santos Laguna.

The big outlay though, was to Arsenal to land Joe Willock.

And while the fee could reach above the £25million reported figure, United are understood to have structured the deal so that was not paid upfront, as is their usual transfer policy. Hence why Steve Bruce said the club “broke their transfer rules” to land Willock.

It is believed a fee of around £10million was put down to take the player, with further staged payments taking the fee higher.

Cash recouped

Again few will know the exact figures, but it is fair to assume United did receive a small fee for Lejeune’s La Liga exit. The same too can be said of Bobby Clark’s exit at youth level, he signed for Liverpool.

The weekly wage bill will be where United mostly succeeded in trimming the fat with Muto’s reported £54,000 per-week wage packet being cut from costs, although it will have been fairly expensive to facilitate the release of the player who still had one year left on said lucrative deal.

Lejeune’s wage, added to Andy Carroll’s basic packet of £35,000 a week and Christian Atsu, Henri Saivet and Achraf Lazaar’s money looks to have, to the untrained eye, saved the Magpies around £200,000 per-week in wages.

In this case, it is fair to assume the ‘ins’ do not outweigh the ‘outs’ when it comes to United’s wage bill. And this simple sum has left many fans asking “where’s the money gone, Mike?”. And not for the first time, I might add.

Expected NUFC 25-man Premier League squad

GOALKEEPERS: Martin Dubravka, Karl Darlow, Mark Gillespie, Freddie Woodman

RWB: Javier Manquillo, Jacob Murphy

LWB: Jamal Lewis, Matt Ritchie

CENTRAL DEFENDERS: Jamaal Lascelles, Ciaran Clark, Fabian Schar, Federico Fernandez, Emil Krafth, Paul Dummett

MIDFIELDERS: Isaac Hayden, Jonjo Shelvey, Sean Longstaff, Jeff Hendrick, Miguel Almiron, Ryan Fraser, Joe Willock

FORWARDS: Callum Wilson, Joelinton, Dwight Gayle, Allan Saint-Maximin