Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe has admitted that the Magpies have had no choice but to review their transfer strategy after being backed into a corner thanks to the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.
The Magpies made two cash signings over the January window as Gençlerbirliği’s talented teen Baran Yildiz arrived from the Turkish Super Lig side and Irish whizkid Kyle Fitzgerald jetted in from Galway in Ireland. And while Howe admits that emphasis on making stars is key at Benton, he hopes that Newcastle’s last three barren transfer windows will allow scope to sign a more established star or two as well.
But the days of focusing on bolstering the senior squad appear to have been altered as sporting director Paul Mitchell looks to make his mark.
Howe told Chronicle Live: “Making stars is something that the club and has had a vision of doing ever since I arrived. I know there was a big push to sign some talented younger players at the Academy and the guys in the other building can really help and flourish, nurture into the first-team that has always been part of the plan.
“With PSR now that it is more weighted into that direction as well. If you can bring one or two gems through it can make a massive difference to everything that we are trying to achieve here.
“But I still think there is still room to sign established players – there has to be. For where we are and the size of the club we are. So it has to be a mixture of both really.”
Despite a deflating winter window, in which Lloyd Kelly was effectively sold to Juventus and Miguel Almiron was moved on to Atlanta United with no replacements coming in, Howe and his backroom team lifted the squad perfectly for the crucial win over Arsenal on Wednesday night.
Reaching a second Carabao Cup final in the space of three seasons has resulted in a genuine feelgood factor flowing around the city as the pre and post match scenes from the victory over the Gunners went national this week.
Going into the weekend FA Cup tie against Birmingham, Howe knows that he must find a way to keep that pumping around the dressing room. Howe said: “If you could bottle it up that would be great. We could do with a sprinkle of that in every game.
“I think it is very difficult to do that. But certainly some of the passages of play, we will certainly use again. The images and depending what theme we are looking at there was so much good to take from the game in terms of our attitude, how we made good things happen off the back of a lot of a hard work.”
It will be a very different occasion at Birmingham on Saturday night with Newcastle going into the tie against the League One side as hot favourites. They will be backed by 5,000 supporters heading to the second city looking for a big result.
Howe said he and his backroom team will find the right recipe to motivate the players for what will be a very different scenario as the BBC Match of the Day cameras turn up hoping for a shock.
He said: “We will definitely use that (the feelgood factor) and try to relate it back to the game again. You have to understand the psychology of that game compared to the game we are going into at Birmingham, it is totally different.
“There was always an angle you can help the players with. We can look at this game or that game and find an angle, see it isolation and try to find a psychological edge that can help us with the next challenge.”
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