Newcastle United may be one of the wealthiest clubs in the world on paper, but they do not have unlimited spending power – and with the announcement of a pre-tax loss of £73.4m for the 2022/23 season, the board’s claims of reduced funding for transfers begin to ring true. European FFP rules and the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations mean that Newcastle’s owners will not be able to endlessly replicate the substantial splurges of the early days of the Saudi takeover – and may force the Magpies to start selling in order to keep spending and move forward.

The Premier League’s rules allow for a maximum loss of £105m over a rolling three-year period, and Newcastle now show cumulative losses of over £144m over the past two years. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they will break the rules (and risk a points deduction, as happened to Everton this season) as some of those losses won’t count against that £105m limit – investment in infrastructure, for example – but it does suggest that they are already sailing pretty close to the wind.