The Telegraph gives worrying insight as they peek behind the curtain of NUFC's PSR scramble

 · July 4 2024, 20:00
The Telegraph gives worrying insight as they peek behind the curtain of NUFC's PSR scramble
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Newcastle United survived a nightmarish weekend after scrambling to avoid a possible 10-point deduction next season.

The Magpies reportedly had a £60million hole to fill before Sunday's deadline or risk breaching PSR and being slapped with a points deduction.

Newcastle flirted with selling Anthony Gordon, tried to create quasi-swap deal with Everton for Yankuba Minteh and Dominic Calvert-Lewin and tried to hawk Elliot Anderson to Wolverhampton Wanderers as part of a deal for Max Kilman.

None of those deals came off which left Newcastle panicking right up until the deadline before Minteh eventually went to Brighton for £33million and Anderson went to Nottingham Forest for £35million. Crisis averted in the nick of time.

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Newcastle didn't want Dominic Calvert-Lewin in case they couldn't move on Callum Wilson

Chaos reigned supreme in Newcastle's boardroom

The Telegraph have done a deep dive into what led Newcastle to that point and how they handled it - the key point of that part of the story being "not well".

There was said to be much tension behind the scenes with a source telling The Telegraph it was “not like anything they had encountered before” with arguments and disagreements, “a lot of stress” and a horrible feeling they would not be able to solve the problem.

“The season was almost over before it had begun,” they said. “If we had been hit with a 10-point penalty, and that is what we were looking at, how would we have realistically been able to push for Europe next season?”

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Newcastle don't want three specialist centre-forwards ... WHAT?

To be fair, though, I think anyone could have predicted that's what things would have been like behind the scenes, it was something else in that report that caught my eye.

When discussing the potential deal involving Dominic Calvert-Lewin coming to Newcastle, the report mentioned a specific issue that stopped the deal from happening:

"A swap deal with Everton involving striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin was discussed extensively, but Newcastle did not have a buyer for veteran striker Callum Wilson and did not want three specialist centre-forwards next season."
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I can't handle the idea of not having three strikers

The drum I have been beating since last season ended was that there is no way we can go into next season with just two recognised strikers on the books, but it seems like the club has other ideas which means we may not see another centre-forward come in this summer at all unless Callum Wilson is sold, which would again leave us with just two.

We got caught out so many times last season with Wilson and Alexander Isak tag-teaming injuries and often both being unavailable at the same time. Surely we can't be risking that again? I get we have some versatile players and we're looking for a right-winger who will probably have plenty of versatility too, but that's not the same. We need an out-and-out striker for every game then you can use those versatile wingers as makeshift strikers in emergencies or as a change in the middle of a match if things need shaking up, but to start we should always be able to field a striker.

Is it just me?

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