Jack Grealish and Newcastle United – How could anybody believe this? | OneFootball

Potential Newcastle United signings are now getting ever more feverishly discussed.

The (first) summer transfer window opening just seven days after the 2024/25 Premier League season is concluded.

Ahead of that of course, the small matter of United’s fight for a Champions League place.

We all love it of course, talking about the Newcastle United signings that might be made.

Plus of course, the ones that most definitely won’t be coming to St James’ Park…

The Newcastle United takeover of October 2021 saw daft media talk of Mbappe and similar, as now potential Newcastle United signings.

So what have we learned as the reality in these past three years and a half years?

Well, as always, the media will continue to ‘report’ any old nonsense, nothing changes there.

However, a bit of a head scratcher why so many Newcastle United fans remain so clueless, in terms of what they are prepared to believe the club and Eddie Howe are looking to do.

Amongst the Newcastle United signings I have seen speculated for Summer 2025, is this one.

I don’t know which newspaper/website started this one, but it certainly has been going since at least the last (January 2025) transfer window, but basically the story is that Newcastle United are (supposedly!) interested in signing Jack Grealish.

Manchester City paid £100m for Jack Grealish in summer 2021, he has started only 62 Premier League games in four seasons. He has started just seven PL matches this season and indeed, only 17 PL games since 2023.

In four Premier League seasons, he has scored 12 PL goals, averaging three a season.

Now, I am pretty confident that if a club offered Man City their £100m back, then Pep Guardiola would carry him all the way to his new club.

However, the idea that the new club for Grealish could be Newcastle United, at any price, is beyond laughable.

Say Man City would take ‘just’ £40m for their record signing, why on earth could anybody think for a second that Howe and Newcastle would seriously have any interest in such a signing???

Even if you took a massive leap of faith and believed he could be once again the player that Man City paid £100m to Villa for, the fact is, Jack Grealish turns 30 in September.

Also the ‘small’ matter that his wages will be way beyond what any current Newcastle United player gets. How would Isak, Bruno, Tonali, Gordon all feel, if Newcastle signed a squad player to go on the bench, who was earning a massive amount more than any of them?

More to the point, why would Newcastle United be wanting to do this, especially in these pressurised PSR times???

Again, putting reality to one side, in terms of transfer fee and wages on a four or five year contract, you would be talking about a commitment of the best part of £100m (transfer fee, wages, agents etc) on a signing that United would almost certainly never get a penny back on. We aren’t Man U!!!

Whilst it is, as ever, difficult to know which Newcastle United signings will be made.

Surely we have by now worked out which Newcastle United signings WON’T be made.

Such as a soon to be 30 year old Jack Grealish who wouldn’t get in the NUFC first eleven and yet would become easily the top wage earner, upsetting all of our best players!

Apart from the very first January 2022 crisis transfer window when Eddie Howe and the then new NUFC owners had to bring in experienced ready to roll instantly, older signings, Newcastle United these next three and a half years and six transfer windows, haven’t paid a transfer fee for a single outfield player over the age of 25.

The club policy is quite clear and obvious.

Indeed, all of the transfer fees paid for outfield players since January 2022, have all been for players aged 23 and under, with the exception of (a then 25 year old) Harvey Barnes, who Newcastle paid £38m for in summer 2023.

Eddie Howe and Newcastle United have had outstanding success, the judgement outstanding in identifying players at a young age, who will both progress in quality on the pitch AND in terms of valuation.

The likes of Bruno, Gordon, Livramento, Tonali, Hall, Botman, Isak…