Newcastle United and free transfer Jesse Lingard – and the numbers that didn't add up

Lingard, a target for Newcastle United in January’s transfer window, will reportedly pick up a £200,000-a-week wage at the newly-promoted club.

Forest are getting Lingard, a talented England international with an abundance of Premier League experience, for free, but his salary, week by week, will add up.

Newcastle have been labelled as the world’s richest club since a takeover late last year, but 29-year-old’s Lingard’s wage expectations this summer were always going to be a challenge for United.

The club, which must work within the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability rules as it increases its commercial revenues, still has a strict wage structure.

And if the club, which has already spent around £60million on Sven Botman, Nick Pope and Matt Targett this summer, was to fund such a salary, it would mean problems for head coach Eddie Howe, a long-time admirer of Lingard, who was also a target for West Ham United and Everton.

Speaking in February after the club failed to persuade Manchester United to loan Lingard in the mid-season window as it fought to stay in the Premier League, Howe said: “Jesse Lingard’s a player I’ve always admired – and that’s probably the best thing to say.”

Howe knows if a player came in on that kind of money, he would soon have a few players knocking on his door asking for pay rises.

United’s head coach, we know, is big on unity within the group, and a huge wage disparity could lead to disunity.

The club will need to pay more to progress on the field, and compete for world-class players, but the wage structure will have to be increased incrementally over time.

For now, Newcastle pay the wages of a mid-table Premier League team.

And the club must pull in more money through commercial deals before it can start offering anywhere near what Lingard will pocket at the City Ground.

Even then, so long as Howe is in charge, the wages of new arrivals will have to be carefully calibrated to ensure squad unity.