On Friday, Eddie Howe alluded to the fact that Premier League clubs were reluctant to do business with Newcastle in the transfer window, and now, The Telegraph has reported that those sentiments are indeed true.
In Luke Edward’s piece, he says the “Newcastle tax has become more of a boycott” which the other Premier League clubs did suggest they’d do when our takeover went through last year.
It now turns out that Ainsley Maitland-Niles was “keen” to join Newcastle in final days of the transfer window only for Arsenal to block his move. Likewise, Chelsea deemed Newcastle a rival and therefore wouldn’t loan Christian Pulisic or Conor Gallagher to Tyneside.
In a way, it’s flattering that the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal now see us as a rival and a threat to their league standing, but on the flip side, the level of pettiness is absolutely unreal. The Premier League is allegedly the best league in the world, the level of competition is fierce and surely, another challenger to the throne can only be a good thing for the League and for the sport in general.
However, the “big six” have had their own way for so long, and have such a tight grip on the Premier League as an institution, that the idea of another club breaking into that group absolutely terrifies them, to the point that they will do everything in their power to keep us down, and if that means refusing to deal with us in the transfer market, then that’s what they’ll do.
So it looks like Newcastle will be forced to once again, shop abroad in January while they speak to Premier League players nearing the end of their contracts. Hopefully, we can persuade a few to join us on those terms as a huge middle finger to their current clubs.
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