Ambition and pragmatism: Newcastle pin survival hopes on two-tier transfer strategy

It always promised to be a transformative transfer window. If Newcastle United’s status as the Premier League’s biggest winter spenders was predictable ever since a takeover was completed, three verdicts on their business will be delivered.

The first comes immediately, the second at the end of the season, when it is determined if it has kept them in the division, and the third in the more distant future. Did they lay foundations for something grander or simply spend a lot?

Certainly Eddie Howe has addressed most of the problem positions in his squad; that his additions include defenders, midfielders and forwards show that included virtually every department. But his buys can be divided into two categories which have nothing to do with roles on the pitch: short- and long-term. There are some who could be crucial components of a United side found much higher up the league in two or three years’ time. There are others who are in effect signed for four months.

Officially, only the loaned Matt Targett is. Nevertheless, the left-back can be bracketed with Dan Burn and Chris Wood. In an ideal world, Newcastle would not have been paying £13 million for perhaps Brighton’s fourth-best centre-back, especially when he is 29, or £25 million for a 30-year-old Burnley forward. Neither is likely to be a starter for a top-half Premier League side now.

They turned to Burn after missing out on players with more potential, who could have been the cornerstone of their defence for years, such as Lille’s Sven Botman. Yet it has long been apparent that most of their centre-backs were declining. Captain Jamaal Lascelles required a better partner and Burn probably figured a long way down their original shortlist but is still an upgrade.

Chris Wood threatens to prove the most pragmatic purchase in footballing history. If the New Zealander scores a few goals, Burnley prove insufficiently potent without him and Newcastle stay up at the Clarets’ expense, it will look a brilliantly Machiavellian deal. That Callum Wilson was injured meant Newcastle had an added imperative to get a striker. Wood arrived ready for the Premier League.

The Reims prodigy Hugo Ekitike represented his antithesis, a 19-year-old brimming with potential who Newcastle targeted with the future in mind, hoping he would improve with them, but with less of a guarantee for the here and now.

At 31, Kieran Trippier is the oldest, but the player with the most pedigree now and, given his form in recent seasons, one who should nail down a place even as others are eased aside in future transfer windows and can improve Newcastle both defensively and with his crossing. While Howe arguably needed two full-backs, Trippier feels the opposite of Targett, who was himself displaced by the former Newcastle target Lucas Digne as Aston Villa secured a higher-calibre left-back.

Bruno Guimaraes may rank as the most auspicious arrival, neither a work in progress, like Ekitike, nor a player in his thirties, such as Trippier, but, at 24, one approaching his peak. An Olympic gold medallist last summer and a Brazil international was one of Ligue 1’s best midfielders and a target for Arsenal. “Bruno is a hugely exciting talent and has been one of our primary targets,” said Howe. Such words could not honestly be used to describe Wood, Targett or Burn.

But this has been a two-tier window for Newcastle, of more ambitious recruits and practical moves which reflect their predicament. There are prosaic figures who might not be expected to be in the team of the world’s richest club and there are the auspicious arrivals who have more stardust and the ability to take Newcastle to greater things. If, that is, they can survive.

90 notable January transfer deals