With money to burn, Newcastle United’s owners will be priming themselves for the opening of the January transfer window, which will be the first realistic opportunity for them to begin to put a marker down at St. James’ Park.
Although success isn’t guaranteed and won’t happen overnight, the club have got to start somewhere, and to that end, a number of players are being targeted.
It seems that their approach will be studious and considered too, rather than scattergun and buying for the sake of it, and the Magpies are taking their cue from Liverpool and Chelsea.
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The German blueprint that both Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel have brought to Merseyside and west London has been incredibly successful to this point.
According to Bild, Amanda Staveley and her fellow directors are looking at Lutz Pfannenstiel, Lucien Favre and Ralf Rangnick as potential coaches.
All three have had decent Bundesliga experience, whilst on the playing side, Timo Werner and Niklas Sule are being targeted, along with Philippe Coutinho and, in time, Erling Haaland.
It certainly seems as if PCP Capital Partners and the Saudi Arabian Investment Fund mean business.
What will be interesting to see is just how quickly players themselves want to align with the Newcastle project.
With money no object, the Magpies can blow every other club out of the water with their salary offering, so the real question is how much cachet there will be for those who are considering a move to Tyneside.
The relative glory days of the 1990s under Kevin Keegan could be just around the corner again.
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