If anybody doesn't think Newcastle United need money spent on the squad, the 21 NUFC players at Hull cost £3.66m on average.
Newcastle United travelled to Hull on Tuesday night.
Rafa Benitez taking a 21 man squad to the second friendly of the pre-season.
Martin Dubravka didn’t get on the pitch but the other 20 got some minutes, with the Premier League season now only two and a half weeks away.
I was at the game and a bit of a typical friendly, Newcastle did ok in the first half but didn’t really have much/any quality to hurt a poor opposition, apart from a couple of Shelvey passes including the one for the opening goal.
After the interval, Newcastle didn’t really show much, if any, quality anywhere on the pitch.
You don’t expect NUFC to be at their very best but I think it is normal to expect at least passages of play that is far better quality than a Championship relegation struggling opposition, who have lost a host of players this summer as they slash the wage bill.
When you scratch the surface, Newcastle United might well have had the numbers, but who amongst them are good enough?
I would say very very few and Rafa Benitez appeared to back this view up, with his comments after the game.
This morning I have gone through the squad of players from last night and there are glaring reasons as to why myself and the other 2,500 Newcastle fans were left worrying about the coming season.
All the talk at the minute is about money, or rather the lack of it, that is being spent on players this summer.
However, this is only the tip of the very large NUFC iceberg when you factor in just how little money has been spent on this group of players in the past. Lack of investment now is only adding to the problems caused by so little cash spent in the past.
Money doesn’t guarantee success but not spending it pretty much guarantees failure, not always immediately but at least sometime down the line.
Of the 21 Newcastle players last night, only three of them cost more than £5m and eight cost nothing.
Altogther the 21 players cost £75m, averaging out at £3.66m per player.
Never mind competing with the rest of the Premier League, never mind bettering that 13 year old Michael Owen record £16m signing, Newcastle haven’t spent more than £10m on a player since promotion and indeed £4m Dubravka is the only buy this window so far.
The 21 Newcastle United players at Hull last night and what each of them cost:
£4m Karl Darlow
£0 Freddie Woodman
£5m DeAndre Yedlin
£0 Jamie Sterry
£0 Josef Yarney
£4m Isaac Hayden
£4m Jamaal Lascelles
£5m Ciaran Clark
£0 Callum Roberts
£4m Javier Manquillo
£13m Jonjo Shelvey
£0 Ki Sung-yueng
£5m Mohamed Diame
£0 Victor Fernandez
£10m Jacob Murphy
£0 Rolando Aarons
£0 Sean Longstaff
£12m Matt Ritchie
£5m Joselu
£2m Ayoze Perez
£4m Martin Dubravka