Last week, a bizarre story linking Newcastle with a move for Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar emerged in the media.
Now, thanks to The Telegraph, we have been given an insight into how senior figures at St James’ Park reacted to this rumour.
What’s the story?
Well, senior figures at Newcastle found this story just as hilarious as we did.
The Telegraph believe the Magpies were amused to hear of their ‘interest’ in Neymar, and have swiftly ruled out a move for the £200m man.
In fact, Newcastle are not expected to be lavish spenders in the summer market, with a budget of £60m set aside to improve the squad.
The Magpies have no interest in shelling out huge sums for football’s superstars, but instead want to adopt a “pragmatic” approach.
Extra funds could also be raised through sales, with Isaac Hayden, Jamal Lewis and Ciaran Clark three players who could be offloaded.
The plan is to grow gradually, rather than to spend absurd amounts of money to gatecrash the Premier League’s summit at an unnatural rate.
Newcastle right to avoid Neymar
In our view, Newcastle’s approach to the market sounds very sensible, and they are certainly right to ignore a move for Neymar.
We’ve seen overly ambitious owners ruin their clubs by trying to run before they can walk, such as Tony Fernandes at QPR.
In 2014, only Manchester City and Chelsea recorded larger losses than QPR’s £65.4m, caused by a scattergun approach in the market as big names such as Julio Cesar arrived on massive wages.
Now, the R’s are a mid-table Championship side, who needed years to return to some state of financial normality.
Hopefully, Newcastle do not lose sight of their intentions to be sensible, and the Magpies can steadily return to the summit of English football.
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