Eddie Howe, Newcastle United transfer speed and the real world | OneFootball

The words of Eddie Howe have been endlessly repeated.

The Newcastle United Head Coach speaking after the final match of the season, when United had lost to Everton but had confirmation of qualification for the Champions League.

Eddie Howe met the Newcastle United owners after that match on the final day.

Ahead of that meeting with his bosses, Eddie Howe said quite a bit about the upcoming summer trading.

However, since then, a lot of Newcastle United fans and the media, have intensely focused on just one small part of what Howe said.

Eddie Howe speaking at his post-match Everton press conference, before heading into a meeting with Newcastle United Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and the rest of the NUFC board of directors – Sunday 25 May 2025:

“As far as I’m aware, we do not have any PSR issues heading into this deadline.

“Now, I have to put a caveat in there, because I’m not seeing the figures, I’m only relaying what I’m getting told. But I think we are in a lot healthier position and a lot stronger position than we were at this time last year.

“We are looking to reverse what we did last summer.

“This time, we are in a strong position ourselves where we’ll be looking to make additions to the squad.

“I will have a discussion with the chairman and representatives from PIF today and I’m looking forward to that.

“We will be trying to lay some foundations for what lies ahead in the summer.

“In terms of timings and everything that follows that, I don’t know, but the planning and all the things that go on behind the scenes have been there for a number of weeks now.

“We have been working hard to try to set things up for what we need to do.

“I think whenever I speak to the chairman, he is very focused on success.

“He is focused on achieving and winning, and he always leaves me in doubt that that’s what he wants, I’m working towards that.”

“Speed is key for us and I have reiterated that many times internally.

“Speed is key because we have to be dynamic.

“We have to be ready to conclude things very quickly because good players don’t hang around for long.”

The word that pretty much everyone has chosen to focus on, is of course, ‘speed’.

This then interpreted by plenty of people as – Eddie Howe must be furious that no signings have been made so far.

I don’t agree with this at all.

None of us, both journalists and fans, know what really is and isn’t happening inside the club.

So it is all a case of best guesses, making judgements on what people say, also bearing in mind what has happened in the past.

I have little doubt that Eddie Howe would have loved to have made some key signings already in these very early days of June. However, that isn’t the same thing as Eddie Howe angry/gutted due to no key signings made by this point.

My interpretation of what Eddie Howe had to say about ‘speed’, is that he means Newcastle United have to be ‘ready to conclude things very quickly’ when a player becomes available.

The Newcastle United recruitment team will be in regular contact with countless clubs and players via agents. Agents are the key people now in terms of how deals are done and the hundreds of millions of pounds they ‘earn’ from business done by Premier League clubs.

If Eddie Howe is looking to bring in signings who will be good enough to get into this Newcastle United team, then rest assured that plenty of other clubs will be also interested in these players.

So the selling club is in a very strong position. If other clubs are after one of their best players, one of their biggest assets, what incentive is there to make any rash decision? The same with the players themselves.

What I think Eddie Howe means with ‘speed’, is that he wants Newcastle United to be ready to do a deal, if/when one of their targets becomes available. With all of their targets, NUFC will have a valuation on them, both in terms of transfer fee and wages.

So to me, this is what Eddie Howe wants and expects, that after many conversations via agents and having had the target player watched a lot of times, Newcastle United to be in ASAP with their offer of transfer fee and personal terms for the player.

In the real world, when you look at the players that have been signed by Premier League clubs so far, the overwhelming majority are deals that were already sorted long ago and when the transfer window opens they are automatically triggered. So signings agreed months ago even a year or more in some cases, including players who had been on loan at a club and that deal including an eventual obligation to buy.

Other than that, we have seen Chelsea and Man City doing a fair few signings, which after all, is why this extra early transfer window came about. To specifically help clubs that are involved in the FIFA Club World Cup, by allowing them to make early signings so they can play in that competition.

You then have Liam Delap and Matheus Cunha where they had release clause transfer fees in their contracts and so it was out of their clubs’ control if they wanted to leave.

Liverpool had clearly had Frimpong lined up some time ago, as they knew a year or two ago that Alexander-Arnold would be leaving this summer, now the title winners smashing the Premier League transfer record with £116m for Wirtz.

However, these are the exceptions, the vast majority of Premier League clubs haven’t as yet made any new signings this summer.

In these past transfer windows under Eddie Howe and these Newcastle United owners, when the club have had the freedom to spend ambitiously, then they have done so AND done so very well. Great players at (relatively) great transfer fees and wages that won’t cripple the club.

I have every confidence that this will happen once again this summer, just a case for the right players to become available and ready to move, with the right deals able to be done.