Newcastle United forced into £59m transfer ‘gamble’ as Fulham exploit major recurring weakness

Defeat to Bournemouth a fortnight ago was viewed as a blip, an inevitable loss after nine straight wins. Although the margin of defeat on that occasion was significant, it wasn’t a defeat that would see alarm bells ring too loudly.

Saturday’s defeat against Fulham, however, was one that may have just slightly raised the pain level on Tyneside. Marco Silva’s side were well disciplined and took advantage of a sub-par display by their hosts to register three points and complete the double over their Magpies.

As the dust settled on strikes from Raul Jimenez and Rodrigo Muniz to put Fulham in the lead, Newcastle probed for an equaliser. However, in a tale that is all too familiar on Tyneside this season, they were unable to recover that deficit with their substitutes failing to turn the tide.

Joe Willock was the first attack minded player to be introduced, but he struggled to make an impact throughout. An air shot after the ball was squared to him encapsulated his underwhelming afternoon.

Lewis Miley was also subdued during his time on the pitch whilst Will Osula barely had a touch of the ball after replacing Jacob Murphy. Alexander Isak, like he was against Bournemouth two weeks ago, anonymous.

Howe’s changes, unfortunately for him and the 50,000 Newcastle fans in attendance, simply did not work and whilst the head coach and players have to take some responsibility for that, there is one fairly sized or two smaller sized, take your pick, elephants in the room.

In an ideal world, Howe would have turned to his bench on Saturday and instead of seeing a teenager in just his second season as a senior regular and a young striker who has yet to score a Premier League goal, he would have had the £59m duo of Callum Wilson and Harvey Barnes looking back at him. Wilson and Barnes’ respective records in front of goal will be the envy of almost any Premier League player past or present.

But you can’t score goals from the treatment table.

Howe revealed after the match that Wilson could be back in contention on Wednesday night, a little comfort although it meant nothing as Fulham celebrated on Saturday. Barnes, meanwhile, is a couple of weeks away from returning.

Whilst neither of them want to be sidelined with injury, the fact of the matter is they are currently injured - and no attacking recruitments this month mean that it is of paramount importance that they return to fitness as soon as possible. And they must stay fit.

Newcastle have entered the last three transfer windows needing to strengthen at right wing. Miguel Almiron, who left the club to rejoin Atlanta United last week after six years with the club, remains the last out and out right winger Newcastle United signed (minus Yankuba Minteh who didn’t make a single appearance for the club before being sold to Brighton).

On paper it does make sense to bank the £10m they will receive for selling Almiron until summer. In reality, Newcastle really could do with signing replacement this month.

PSR will continue to strangle their ambitions until it is either abolished (very unlikely) or they find a way to increase their revenues to a point where they can ‘compete’ with the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. Only then will Newcastle United be able to swing and miss in the transfer market, and get away with it, like those five are able to do.

Until that happens, January windows like this will happen. And that means risking not signing anyone to strengthen a very good starting XI in the short-term, just because £59m of talent have suffered injuries.

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