Newcastle United’s bid to sit alongside the Newcastle United Big Six conversation has taken a serious turn in the opening weeks of the season. Three matches played, unbeaten, and a 2-0 win at a Tottenham side that spent £322m this summer to get there. The jury that wrote off this club in June is looking decidedly uncomfortable.
What Newcastle United’s Big Six rivals actually spent
Context matters here. Tottenham are the second-highest spenders in the division this summer, behind only Chelsea. Their outlay includes a club record £85m on Mateus Fernandes, then broken again with a deal for Sandro Tonali that could rise to £100m. Add Savio at £75m, Jan Paul van Hecke at £52m, and Omar Marmoush on loan from Manchester City with a £60m obligation to buy. That is an extraordinary accumulation of spending power, and Newcastle played through them like they were barely there.
Newcastle’s own summer was spent very differently. The departures were loud and the noise around them louder. But the replacements have arrived with a point to prove, and the early signs are that Matthias Jaissle has built something coherent rather than simply patched over the holes.
Amar Dedić arrived from Benfica for £29.5m and has slotted in at right-back with the kind of energy that makes you forget there was ever a debate about cover in that position. He tackles, he gets forward, he assists. In a matter of weeks he has made Tino Livramento’s grip on that berth look uncertain, which is quite the statement for a player still finding his feet in English football.
González brings La Masia pedigree to St James’
Then there is Nico González. Yahoo Sports put his transfer fee at £48m, and every minute of that investment has looked justified so far. His 60-yard crossfield pass to set up Newcastle’s first goal at Spurs was the kind of delivery that stops a ground mid-conversation.
What the fee does not fully convey is the background González brings with him. According to the Newcastle United official site, he is a graduate of Barcelona’s La Masia academy and has won the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup, the Taça de Portugal and the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira. At 24 he is not raw. He is experienced, decorated, and bringing a range of passing, long and short, that gives Jaissle’s side a different dimension entirely.
He also only arrived without a great deal of fanfare. That, in itself, says something about the summer Newcastle have pulled off quietly while the headlines focused elsewhere.
The new faces raising every question about the summer
Goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek came up with a string of reflex saves when called upon. Sean Steur, 18 years old, is showing a footballing brain beyond his age. Anthony Elanga and Yoane Wissa, both written off under Eddie Howe last season, look like entirely different players under Jaissle. Revitalised is an understatement.
Lewis Hall gave away two penalties in the opening two fixtures and just kept going. That kind of resilience runs through the whole squad right now. There is a togetherness here that no transfer fee can manufacture and no amount of Spurs’ spending can buy.
It is worth being honest: three matches is three matches. Hull City were joint top on Saturday night. Caution is reasonable. But the next eight fixtures before the ten-match benchmark arrives include Bournemouth, Leeds, Hull City, Coventry, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Everton and Fulham. That schedule is genuinely manageable for a side playing with this level of confidence and structure.
Bournemouth arrive at St James’ Park on Saturday lunchtime. Newcastle go into it unbeaten, well-drilled, and with a squad that has comprehensively answered every question the doubters put to it this summer. The next chapter starts then.