The wages cap is in place, and now the big earners are gone, the Toon owner has total control over the financial situation.
Some suggest we should throw caution to the wind and pay what the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City are paying as wages.
But let's look at the other picture - a club who (not so long ago) was in a far better financial situation than ourselves - Portsmouth.
Portsmouth administrator Trevor Birch claims Tal Ben Haim epitomises everything that has gone wrong at the club.
The 30-year-old Israel international has one year remaining on a £36,000 per week salary that could see Pompey go into liquidation before the start of the coming season.
Birch has imposed a £5,000-a-week salary cap to help cash flow with the rest of the money being deferred.
But the debt remains and Balram Chainrai's offer to buy the club is on the condition that Portsmouth's highly-paid players are off the payroll at the League One club.
With no club likely to take on Ben Haim's hefty salary and little indication that he or his agent Pini Zahavi intend to give up the money, Birch claims that could mean liquidation within weeks.
Trevor Birch: "Ben Haim represents everything that has gone wrong at Portsmouth, the excessive wages that were given four or five months before they went into administration the first time.
"There were no relegation clauses in his contract, and here we are in League One trying to negotiate a way out of it.
"The player and his agent haven't caused the problem but they are not helping.
"It's not just him, but his contract is by far the largest.
"The creditors have accepted Chainrai's offer but it is conditional on me reaching an agreement with those players. I'm working night and day to persuade them that we are running out of time.
"We are two or three weeks away.
"Then the players will get nothing anyway. It's brinkmanship, but the club is on a knife edge. Michael Appleton (Portsmouth's manager) can't sign any new players because there may not be a club."