Newcastle United failing with transfer bids isn’t…failure | OneFootball

Newcastle United now with the new season only 29 days away.

Fans wondering which players will be signed and when, to strengthen the team and squad for a huge season ahead.

Heading into this summer’s transfer market, I would say the priorities of Newcastle United fans went something like this.

First priority, don’t lose any of the current key players.

Second priority, two positions. A versatile attacking player to play on the right side, who can also play through the middle, plus a defender who can play on the right side of the middle of defence.

Third priority, another striker/attacking player and a goalkeeper.

This is the Newcastle United position now (18 July 2025):

First priority.

No current key players have left. Despite countless clubs wanting to buy Alexander Isak, he is still at Newcastle United. The same with Tino Livramento, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali etc etc.

Forest desperate to not lose him but eventually agreement reached in a £55m deal for Anthony Elanga, to play on the right side, who can also play through the middle (and on the left).

Plenty of media talk about central defenders Newcastle United are allegedly interested in but seemingly no offers put in yet.

Third priority.

An offer of £50m made for Joao Pedro but the Brighton player apparently always wanted to go to Chelsea. A bid of £69.5m rejected by Eintracht Frankfurt for Hugo Ekitike, then with Liverpool failing on Alexaander Isak, the Scousers have instead prioritised Ekitike as their new first choice striker and Newcastle reported to have now walked away and looking at other options.

A bid made for James Trafford, the longstanding Eddie Howe goalkeeping target. That bid claimed to be just under £30m and turned down by Burnley, with talks said to be ongoing.

Conclusions

If I evaluate this transfer window so far, in football match terms I would say it feels like Newcastle United are edging it 1-0.

I don’t think it can be overestimated just how important it is that Newcastle United have lost not a single one of their star players, not even anyone who is remotely close to the first choice eleven. If you look at the other clubs who finished in the top half of the table last season, the vast majority have lost first choice players, or are seemingly set to lose them, The likes of Liverpool (Alexander-Arnold), Brighton (Pedro), Forest (Elanga), Brentford (Their manager, their captain, plus other players set to follow), Bournemouth (Kerkez), Chelsea (Madueke set to leave), Villa (Martinez set to leave).

When you lose an out and out first choice key player that a manager was desperate to keep, it is like a massive own goal. Your team is seriously weakened. Then even if/when you sign a replacement, no matter how expensive they are, or how good they looked elsewhere, there is no guarantee they will adapt to their new team, especially if never having played in the Premier League before.

There isn’t a single position in the Newcastle United team, where if everyone is available and Eddie Howe was only allowed to pick from the players now at NUFC, where I would have any worries. The forwards and midfield speak for themselves, I am a big fan of Nick Pope’s, Tino and Hall at full-back (Trippier a quality option as well), then Schar and Burn (or Botman) who were outstanding last season.

For Eddie Howe to have kept all of his first team players and to have added Anthony Elanga and teenage winger Antonito, isn’t a disaster, anything but.

Antonito (Antonio Cordero)

As I said, I see it as Newcastle United currently having a narrow 1-0 lead this transfer window in match terms. Especially when we have also seen the very clear intention of Newcastle United to spend serious money this summer, as evidenced by the successful AND unsuccessful bids.

However, many Newcastle fans, including some of my mates, do see this as some kind of huge failure this summer, in the transfer market.

Why didn’t the recruitment team do this, why didn’t they do this earlier, why didn’t they offer more money etc etc.

The truth is, when you are going for high quality players who are first choice at their current clubs, often their very best players, how can anybody think it should be easy? As I said above, it is a nightmare for any club when they lose their best players, so no wonder they will do everything to keep them. Then even if they accept they will end up leaving, become determined to get every last penny for them, try and get other clubs competing for them.

The negative Newcastle fans will point to NUFC not signing Joao Pedro and Hugo Ekitike as massive failures for Eddie Howe and the recruitment team, why didn’t they do whatever. The truth is though that Newcastle were first this summer to make official bids for both forwards but then what happens, is that this forces the other interested clubs to also show their hands. Pedro wanted to go to Chelsea, as so many Brighton employees have done in the past. Whilst it looks like Ekitike would choose to be first choice striker at Liverpool, rather than second choice at Newcastle.

The idea that Newcastle United, or indeed any Premier League clubs, are only focusing on one player at a time is ludicrous. All major clubs have numerous recruitment staff and scouts around the world who all year are monitoring numerous players for numerous positions, also in regular contact in countless agents with two way communication.

You then reach the actual transfer windows and then it is inevitably a case of wait and see in most cases, as you wait for hopefully all the ducks to be in a row, potential interest from the player in now changing clubs, a feeling that the club in question might sell, the money and PSR flexibility in place to pay for that player, a place in your team/squad that needs to be filled, then you might reach the point of making an actual formal offer.

As I say though, for the players Newcastle United are now going for to be first team contenders, it is surely transparently obvious that they will be very hard to extract from their current clubs and rival clubs will also want them.

It is also of course the case that not everything always gets put in the public domain, a lot we don’t know about. The reason that it happens in certain cases, loads of stuff going public, is clearly because clubs and agents want it to be so.

Whilst a lot of people want to talk about Newcastle United’s failure to land certain players. Surely at the same time you have to say that Liverpool and Arsenal (and others) have failed to sign Alexander Isak. Formal bids may not have been made for Isak but only because these clubs know for sure that they have no chance of getting them. Newcastle no intention of selling and Isak not interested in leaving. The same with Manchester City clearly wanting Tino Livramento, whilst if Newcastle United made it known they would be open to offers, clubs would be queuing up for the likes of Tonali, Gordon and others.

You also surely have to accept that loads of other clubs would also have loved to sign Anthony Elanga, a proven Premier League success with outstanding stats, who scores and creates goals.

Newcastle United are showing great ambition in this summer transfer market and they will have successes AND failures. It doesn’t mean that Newcastle United are failures when they don’t succeed with certain bids. You win some, you lose some.

A tale of two transfers

I will leave you on this note.

I have even heard some Newcastle fans pointing to Sunderland’s summer success in signing players and saying this sums up the ‘failure’ at Newcastle United.

I can’t say that I know much about the players that Sunderland have signed, I hadn’t even heard of most of them. However, I would be pretty confident that if Newcastle United had gone in for any of these Sunderland signings, then they would have ended up at St James’ Park instead.

Newcastle United are looking to recruit key players for a trophy winning Champions League competing team, Sunderland are looking to recruit for an (almost certain to be doomed) relegation struggle.

Two transfers for me sum all of this up, both involving Brighton.

Joao Pedro was first choice at Brighton last season, in 23 PL starts (and four sub appearances) he scored 10 goals and got six assists. Newcastle failed with a £50m+ bid as they lost out to fellow Champions League competing Chelsea.

Sunderland have succeeded in buying Brighton squad player Simon Adringa for more than £20m, winger Adringa made 12 PL starts last season and 19 sub appearances, scoring two goals and getting two assists.

There are levels.

Quite clearly, if Newcastle United had wanted Adringa and not Pedro, then he would now be a NUFC player.

However, the reality is that he isn’t the quality Newcastle United now need, that it is a very small group of players who can match the quality already at St James’ Park, then an even smaller group of potential signings who could potentially improve on the current United first team.