Darren Eales hints at outgoing transfers while downplaying the likelihood of January purchases

Darren Eales has spoken to NUFC TV about the financial state of Newcastle United after releasing the 2022/23 accounts.

In an interview with NUFC TV, Chief Executive Officer Darren Eales has laid out what the recent accounts mean for Newcastle going forward after the club showed a loss of £73.4million.

First of all the key is not to panic when you see the club making a loss like that, but at the same time, let's not be expecting much action in January as a result.

Newcastle have increased their revenue by 39% again this year

The good news is that for the second year in a row since the PIF takeover, the club has increased its revenue by almost 40% each year, putting the club's income at around £250million. Still a long way off the 'big six' but that gap is closing.

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More importantly, though, these accounts don't feature the sponsorship deal with Sela or the new deal with Adidas, both of which hit next year's bottom line which will make everything look much better. Also, as part of the Adidas deal, retail comes back into the club, so the club will start to make more money from shirt sales and other merchandise, another positive for next year's figures and beyond.

In terms of transfers though, Eales heavily hinted that players will be sold to make more headroom in terms of PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules), using an example of selling a player for £50million profit.

"Sometimes trading players creates the headroom. Just to give a basic example, if we have a player that's worth £50million profit, if we were to move him and we bring in a player on the same wages at £50million, so like for like, if we amortise that player over five years it's only a £10million hit but the net value of that is you create £40million of headroom.

"It's counter-intuitive but that moving of players sometimes is enough to create some more headspace. You see that at other clubs where players have been moved on and the club has reloaded."

It's a reality we don't really want to face but at a certain point the club is going to sell our biggest assets and those are usually our favourite players. The good way to look at it though, is that they're doing it to bring in someone better.

January looks like it's going to be a boring month for Newcastle fans

However, don't expect that to happen this month as Eales has suggested that any business Newcastle does in terms of incoming players will be based on looking at medium to long-term and with so many players due back from injury, the club don't feel like there's a big rush for anyone right now, and that any players we do bring in could be seen as short-term fixes which doesn't align with their policy.

"I think firstly, January is not the greatest window to trade in, the summer is always better. I think it's very difficult to get value in the January window because they don't want to let their best players go at such a crucial time. I think we're also in an interesting spot because we've got a number of very good players that have unfortunately been out injured but second half of the season that are going to come back. We're always mindful as well of Financial Fair Play.

"When it comes to player trading we'll make a decision based on the medium to long-term for the club and does it make sense and that's the way we'll approach it."

A bit of a good news/bad news statement overall from Darren Eales, but it does suggest that this summer could be a good one in terms of incoming transfers, although we may have to say goodbye to a popular player or two to do the kind of business we want to do.