Newcastle have ‘disaster of a summer’ as Premier League run by ‘cartel clubs’

Things are going very badly indeed for Newcastle United. But is the Premier League a farce out of the reach of all but Liverpool, Arsenal etc?

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com

Has a team ever had a worse window than Newcastle?
As a Newcastle fan, I went into this summer with so much excitement. We had a team that had showed it can compete with the best, but just needs some depth – and we finally had a bit of headroom to spend a bit to flesh out the squad.

These 5-year net spend things are a bit disingenuous as they ignore the change from relegation fodder into a team playing in Europe (ie they ignore your starting point) but we could finally get the chequebook out a bit.

Instead, we’ve been outbid on fee or wages for all our targets, off field is a mess, we’ve somehow got a smaller squad than we started the summer with (that was already thin and with CL to come) and now our star striker is leaving.

Almost whatever happens from here, it’s been a disaster of a summer – we’ve gone so far backwards when it was our time to leap forward. Morale must be so low in the squad – and it won’t take much to puncture that even more at the start of the season.

Dreading it already…
James (NUFC)

Not whining though
I don’t really disagree with the general thrust of Barry (Perth)’s mail in regard to how a club should expand, but I do have issue with his claim Newcastle fans are whining about PSR.

In my mail the other day I mentioned it as a factual aside, when talking about was the last 5 years what people expected. Anyone I talked to around the time of the takeover, mostly non-Toon fans, as I mostly know Man Utd and Liverpool fans, thought that PIF would come in and ruin football by doing what Chelsea did but on a much larger scale, PSR is at least one of the reasons, if not the entire reason, that hasn’t happened.

I also said that I have been very happy with the last 5 years. There has been sustained growth of the team powered by owner investment, featuring in more live televised games, and increased commercial deals. Consistent top half finishes, Champions League qualification twice in 3 years and a Cup win show it’s all working.

Barry suggests expanding the stadium, this is already at the planning stage, but is complicated by the location of the stadium and the surrounding buildings not owned by the club. At no point did I, or Steve, mention PSR being unfair, needing to be scrapped (it could probably do with a few tweaks, but I am no financial expert) or a tool of the Red Cartel!

I love that Schar and Joelinton are still starters, Sean Longstaff stuck around for 5 years and many of the players who joined to help us avoid relegation are still here and raising their game year after year to get us where we are now. None of that would be likely the case with a blank cheque to spend every season. I’m all for sustainable progress and gradual building, but it still sucks when one of your best players has their head turned, just ask every other club aside from Real Madrid.
Derek from Dundalk

The Premier League is a farce
Article on the beeb yesterday highlighting about 1.2 billion spent in this transfer window so far, and the usual suspects took care of 1 billion of that, with no signs of stopping..

At what point do we accept the Premier League is a farce, designed to appease the breakaway mob and their legions of merch-wearing, telly-clapping fanboys?

What are the rest of use here for? Cannon fodder and the occasional pat on the head for “having a go”?

The field is so far tilted to suit the chosen few, is this the season where the rest of us start looking elsewhere for our distractions?

Or are we just happy to fight it out for 7th/8th and the semi satisfaction that brings.

Make no mistake, the cartel clubs will continue to spend sums we can never get close to. Will continue to qualify for Europe, and the vast sums of money that keep them untouchable. Will continue to push and bend the rules as far as possible to “appear” compliant.

Still as long as there’s an exciting title race for Sky to fawn over relentlessly, what does it matter eh?
Ian, EFC

Gyokeres has been facing League One-style opposition
So, Arsenal have their goal machine. Or do they?

Courtesy of the very reputable Opta Power Rankings (a system that ranks all clubs across all leagues), we can compare the clubs Gyokeres faces in Portugal, to other more familiar clubs in our own pyramid system. Anyway, here is the Portuguese League last season, with each team’s ‘Global Ranking’.

Sporting (23)
Benfica (21)
Porto (59)
Braga (68)
Santa Clara (251)
Vitoria SC (115)
Famalicao (230)
Estoril Praia (303)
Casa Pia (337)
Morieirense (319)
Rio Ave (362)
Arouca (329)
Gil Vicente (402)
Nacional (510)
Estrela Amadora (658)
AVS (694)
Farense (893)
Boavista (767)

Now let’s create an alternative 18 team league with English clubs that are closest to these rankings:

Brentford (20)
Nottingham Forest (22)
Leeds Utd (56)
Sheff Utd (66)
Leicester City (124)
Portsmouth (234)
Derby County (250)
Stoke City (262)
Charlton (273)
Watford (275)
Oxford Utd (284)
Stockport County (371)
Leyton Orient (427)
Wycombe Wanderers (471)
Bolton Wanderers (655)
Lincoln City (670)
Barnsley (773)
Huddersfield Town (890)

The example above is to highlight two things: (1) Whilst Sporting are clearly a bigger club than Coventry, it highlights that leaving Coventry in the Championship for Sporting in the Portuguese top flight doesn’t necessarily place you in a more competitive league environment. (2) The disparity in quality between the bigger clubs in the Portuguese top flight and the other clubs that make up the division. This is not an “anyone can beat anyone” competitive league.

37 of the 39 league goals Gyokeres scored last season were against teams that finished fifth or lower. He managed no goals against either Benfica or Porto and two against fourth placed Braga. 13 of his goals came against the bottom four (League One level) and that accounts for a third of his entire league total. Are you getting flat-track bully vibes? Does this sound like a player who can be the difference maker in a Champions League Quarter Final for example?

There is a reason that goal scorers in the Portuguese League rarely succeed in the “big five” leagues and it is because the step up is huge. Jackson Martinez won the Golden Boot three years running and then flopped massively when he moved to Atletico Madrid. Bas Dost lasted a season at Eintract Frankfurt before returning to leagues outside the “big five”. Nunez hasn’t done enough to be a regular starter at Liverpool since he joined three season ago and it would seem Slot is keen to find him a new club. Mehdi Taremi has been appalling since joining Inter at the start of last season.

I would love for Gyokeres to succeed at Arsenal and I really hope he does, but I’m not sure he will. I think he may have a similar impact as Pepe. Reasonable stats (probably padded out against smaller opponents and cup games), and some nice moments, but ultimately a player who just doesn’t quite seem to integrate successfully and match the technical standards of the players around him; and a player who doesn’t have the capacity to impact big matches.
Naz, Gooner

(Erm, he did score a hat-trick against Manchester City last season – Ed)

Gravenberch a winger? Really?
Anyone else find Minty’s mail about Gravenberch a bit embarrassing? For a so called Liverpool fan, why does he think Slot changed him from a winger to a deep midfielder. For starters, Gravenberch has played out wide 4 times in his entire career and I don’t think any of those were at Liverpool. He was quite obviously bought as a CM and that’s where he played under Klopp before Slot came in. You can’t really have a go at Dave Tickner if you’re imagining things and comparing it to Henry changing from a winger to a striker.
Dion, Arsenal

Chloe Kelly the most decorated England player ever?
I think there is now a solid argument that Chloe Kelly is the greatest England footballer in history, in terms of exploits in an England shirt. She has:

• Won two international trophies (no one has won more)
• Scored the winner in one Euros final
• Scored the winning penalty in another Euros final
• Made the assist for the only England goal in a Euros final
• Scored the winner in a Euros semi final
• Made 1.5 assists in a Euros quarter final to bring England back from 2-0 down (and scored a penalty in the shootout to win it)
• Scored the winning penalty in the 2023 Finalissima.

You could maybe make an argument about some of the chaps from 1966, but none of them won two international trophies…
Paul, London, Arsenal (she’s also the champion of Europe!)

READ: Leah Williamson gives us a eureka moment on luck that extends to Man Utd and Arsenal

The mentality of winners
For the first time we have an England team that expects to win, they expect to find a way to get through. Successive European Championships with a World Cup Final in between is immense. They don’t go into anything hoping, or saying they are one of the teams who could go far… they expect to win.

Heart and desire mixed with tactics and skill. It is a hell of a combination. Lucy Bronze is the definition of Hall of Famer. Jess Carter was a mountain. Hannah Hampton’s gloves need to be checked for magnets – to save penalties from the best player in the WSL and then the best player in the world back to back… wow. I feel for Lauren James, I really do, but she wasn’t fit and Chloe Kelly was right there.

I was lucky, nah, sod that, I was organised enough to get tickets for the 2022 final and took my 12 year old daughter and my 72 year old dad to Wembley on that glorious day. Yesterday was different as it was my (now 15 year old) daughter and me watching at home. This sounds more dramatic than it is, my dad is fine he was watching at home too, we just don’t live close together. It gave a different experience, but not a different feeling. We even did the same celebration. We also ‘stayed’ and watched until the TV companies gave out… and then I rewound and watched the penalties all over again.

What a tournament, what a team, what a sport. I am off to the Ringwood Community Hub for AFC Bournemouth v Portsmouth on Wednesday. 7pm kick off, why not join us? Women’s football isn’t just every couple of years in the summer it is all around you.
Micki Attridge (nope, not dust in my eye, proper actual tears)

The greater good?
Great result for the England’s women team. Absolutely incredible to win two Euros!!

I’ve learnt that Lucy Bronze was playing with a fractured leg through the tournament. If seen so many comments talking about pride, passion, strength…

We saw the same when Rishad Pant came out to bat with a broken foot and Ben Stokes bowling with God knows how many injuries.

While cricket is a different case as no substitutes are allowed to bat/bowl (ridiculous rule IMO, but I understand why it’s there), in Lucy Bronze’s case, she started the final with the fractured leg.

I have a question. And it is a question cos I have no idea about the quality of her deputy. But surely a fully fit right back is better than someone playing with an actual fractured leg? They essentially took a chance that both her and Lauren James would be able to last at least 90 minutes while demonstrably not at their best.

So, my question, what is with this lauding of players in team sports “doing it for the team” when a fully fit player surely has to be better than a broken one? Surely the chance of winning as a team is better when everybody has a working body at least?

Genuine question – and is this a British thing, or is it the same in other countries?
Rob, Hove

Man pre-empts feminist backlash
Ryan Baldi asks “What can men learn from England’s women?” And concludes “Absolutely sod all; it’s not about them”.

But inevitably England’s women’s victory at Euro 2025 will be made about men. Just as their victory three years ago at Euro 2022 was where immediately parallels were drawn with the men’s England team who have continually failed at major tournaments and have not lifted a trophy since that famous afternoon at Wembley at 1966.

Feminists who rarely showed any interest in football were quick to use the England women’s victory to laugh at men for underachieving and winning nothing. And there were those quick to point out the apparent progressive nature of women’s football (tolerance FOR LGBT etc) and to compare it to the apparent bigoted, backwards and neanderthal men’s game. All this will no doubt be happening again post the Lionesses Euro 2025 win, thereby making a victory for women all about men.
Dan, London

Then there’s this fella..
Nobody cares about womens football

Give us a f**king break.
Martin Mason