Newcastle lost at the death to Liverpool but they seem to be catching up

Newcastle United might have lost it at the death at Anfield, but the indication is that they’re catching up with Liverpool. Money talks.

It should be perfectly obvious that it takes more than money alone to build a successful football club. Money is only as good for a club as the way in which it’s spent, and the history of the game is awash with stories of clubs who’ve spent more money than they could afford and repented their bad decisions at leisure.

No other Premier League club has been quite as transformed as Newcastle United over the previous twelve months. The atmosphere, the attitude, so many of the playing and coaching staff… this is a very different to club to that which so recently was subsisting under a Steve Bruce-shaped cloud.

Of course it’s the money that has made the biggest difference of all. Would Newcastle have spent a club record transfer fee of £60m on Alexander Isak this time last year? Probably not. Would Isak have turned down Manchester United to go to Newcastle this time last year? Also, probably not. £235m has been put into the club over this time. This is, as we all already know, no humble rags-to-riches story.

But if it’s plenty possible to criticise the origins of that money, it’s also possible to admire what they’ve done with it. This is not really the team that many would have expected after a year of Saudi ownership, when they first took charge. The transfer policy has eschewed anything like the Tyneside Galacticos flavour that some were expecting, focusing if anything on players that have flown slightly under the radar instead.

It has been noticeable that Newcastle have seldom seemed to be in a battle to bring any of their players to St James’ Park. The players that have arrived at Newcastle United – Kieran Trippier, Bruno Guimaraes, Nick Pope, Sven Botman, Dan Burn, amongst others – are not players that have made huge headlines, but their arrival hints at a recruitment policy that is co-ordinated, inventive and smart, the invisible hand of new sporting director Dan Ashworth, who was poached from Brighton last season.

But none of this could be tied together without the involvement of Eddie Howe. Howe always seemed to the the fourth-favourite when a big-to-biggish managerial job came up while he was at Bournemouth without ever seeming to come close to one. Well, now he’s in one, and it’s reasonable to say that he’s passing the test. He pulled the team comfortably clear of the relegation…