Newcastle - Chelsea: Two rich clubs but only one with a smart spending strategy

First and foremost, it's a battle between two teams fighting for the highly prized Champions League qualification berths. What’s more, it’s also a face-off between two of England’s best young managers in Eddie Howe (44) and Graham Potter (47). Further, it is a clash between two of the league’s wealthiest clubs.

But perhaps most intriguingly, with Newcastle currently above Chelsea in the standings, Saturday's and Flashscore's Top Match also represents a potential changing-of-the-guard moment as the Tyneside club edges closer to destabilising the Premier League’s long-standing status quo and truly breaking into the rarely breached traditional top six.

If Newcastle can consolidate their current top-four position by the end of the weekend, they will go into the World Cup break pleased with their progress this campaign so far.

If they can maintain that through to the end of the season, it will be a huge achievement and the first time they will have done so in two decades having last finished in the Champions League places in 2002/03.

Since regaining promotion in 2017, Newcastle have been a solid mid-table presence in the Premier League but their aspirations drastically changed with the sale of the club by former owner Mike Ashley to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund last October, making them instantly one of the richest clubs in the world.

It hasn’t taken long for the new investment to transform the club's fortunes but it also didn’t happen overnight and it hasn’t been quite the audacious spending spree that many had initially expected.

Instead, since the takeover, Newcastle’s strategy has been notably more measured than other clubs who have experienced similar fortunes. 

They made a smart managerial appointment last November in choosing Howe (previously of Bournemouth) to take the team forward. And while he only took the club to a steady 11th-placed finish last term, he has gone on to impress his ideas more deeply this season. Now, in third place after 14 matches with just one loss and only 11 goals conceded in the league, it’s fair to say, he’s doing a brilliant job.

They also made the key appointment of Dan Ashworth as Sporting Director, who began his role in June this year, after prying him away from Brighton & Hove Albion where he was Technical Director.  

But perhaps even more impressive from afar than those appointments has been Newcastle's transfer business since the takeover, undoubtedly guided in part by Ashworth since his arrival.

Their strategy in the transfer market is the one thing that distinctly sets them apart from the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City, and PSG - other European clubs who have also launched into the mega-rich category almost overnight in recent times via similar buyouts. 

Newcastle have certainly spent money but they haven’t bled it and unlike those other clubs, they have approached the transfer market with what looks like a shrewd and considered plan of action.

They have craftily assembled a squad around a core group that was already there, resisting the temptations to splash out on glamour signings or overhaul the squad completely.

Since the Saudis arrived, the club have had two transfer windows - January 2022 and the summer just gone - to add to the squad that was inherited from the Ashley era. Looking over those signings, you can roughly split them into two categories by drawing a line at the €20million transfer fee mark as follows:

Plus-€20million signings: Alexander Isak (23), Bruno Guimaraes (24), Sven Botman (22), Chris Wood (30), and Joe Willock (23, previously on loan under the prior ownership). 

Sub-€20million signings: Kieran Trippier (32), Dan Burn (30), Matt Targett (27, who joined after an initial loan spell), and goalkeeper Nick Pope (30). 

Casting an eye over the players in the first group, a few things really stand out. 

Firstly, they have only made five large fee signings since the takeover, clearly picking their targets and spending their reportedly limitless cash carefully. Secondly, they have invested in the spine of the team as all of those players play down the middle of the field. Thirdly, and most importantly, almost all of them have been success stories so far.

Wood is the only one that sticks out as a mediocre signing due to his rather paltry goal return. Unfortunately, Isak was injured after just three matches, so perhaps it’s too early to assess him but he started life in the North East encouragingly and is a really exciting addition at least.

Looking at the second category, it’s clear that the club have chosen to supplement those bigger-fee signings with players that have extensive experience in the Premier League. They are not the most glamorous of players on the market but they have all seamlessly fitted in with the squad.

The players in that second group are all defenders, too, proving that the club have chosen to build from the back. The likes of Targett and Burn have been pivotal members of the defence as have Trippier and Pope, who have both brought international quality in exchange for modest transfer fees.

Of course, transfer fees only tell part of the full spending story. There is also the substantial issue of wages to consider. Trippier, for example, may have not cost a large transfer fee but is reportedly earning over €160million a week, making him the highest earner at the club and thus an expensive acquisition in that respect.

What's remarkable about Newcastle, though, is that Trippier is somewhat of an outlier. In fact, only he, Bruno Guimaraes, and Isak are on weekly wages of over €100million.

The club's current total wage bill is estimated to be just the 10th largest in the league, sitting behind the traditional top six, Aston Villa, Leicester City, and West Ham.

Wages are a key indicator of success in the Premier League and correlate strongly with league positions historically. In this regard, Newcastle are vastly out-performing their expenditure as it stands.

The club’s net-spend this summer was -€134.05million. That put them in eighth place in the Premier League spending standings behind Nottingham Forest and Wolves - currently the two last-placed teams in the league - as well as West Ham (15th), who have also struggled for form this season.

Saturday's opponents Chelsea, meanwhile, had the highest net spend of all clubs in Europe this summer: -€225.46million. Their plethora of acquisitions and departures plus their deadline-day moves looked like relative chaos compared to Newcastle's approach.

The above figures just go to show, it’s not what you spend, but how you spend it that really counts.

Newcastle’s most recent signing, Garang Kuol (18), who will join the club in January, is a prodigy picked out of Australia’s A-League for less than one million euros. His is yet another signing which demonstrates further that this club is not like the other mega-rich clubs in the world.

Newcastle's transfer strategy better resembles that of a smaller club cleverly operating within a budget much like the clubs that Howe and Ashworth have both come from, funnily enough. 

Despite being one of the wealthiest clubs in the world, they are a rich club with a poor club market mentality.

Buying clever is important but so is not buying at all and, signings aside, they have not simply discarded the core group of players that were established in the team before the takeover.

So often in football, we see fire sales at clubs after new owners come in and whole squads transformed in one window such as at Nottingham Forest this season (who remarkably signed over 20 new players). Newcastle have resisted that urge and have instead integrated the best parts of the old in with the shinier new acquisitions they can now afford.

Calum Wilson (30), Allan Saint-Maximin (25), Miguel Almiron (28), and Fabian Shar (30) - to name a few - have all been integral to Newcastle this season and were all purchased under the previous ownership. Sean Longstaff (25), who broke into the first team before the takeover from the academy, has also played a big role due to injuries to more preferred midfielders such as Jonjo Shelvey (30).  

Another regime might have looked at those players and thought - these are mid-table players, we need top-four players. A smarter football leadership looks at them and thinks - how can we make top-four players out of this group?

And that’s exactly what Howe and Ashworth are on their way to achieving. 

It should be noted that the source of Newcastle’s riches is heavily criticised largely due to the human rights record of Saudi Arabia.

It is an uncomfortable reality that any potential success of Newcastle will be coloured by the club’s connection to the contentious Arab state. However, whether you hate that or are quite indifferent to it, it doesn’t seem like their ascension toward success is slowing down anytime soon. Quite on the contrary, Newcastle seem destined to crack into the upper echelons of English football this season or next.

Against the traditional top six in the league so far this season, they have lost to just Liverpool. They drew with Manchester City and Manchester United and they recently beat Spurs.

That is a record that already speaks of belonging.

A win in Saturday’s match against Chelsea will provide another important marker along the road toward higher places for Howe, Ashworth, and the Toon Army.

The best thing about Newcastle is that, due to their smart strategies, they will be a success. The worst thing about Newcastle is that, despite the controversial source of their riches, they will still be a success.