Character of signings key to success, says coach

NEWCASTLE boss Eddie Howe has insisted the process of signing players is the same whether he is shopping in the bargain basement or at top-end stores.

The Magpies smashed their record transfer fee on Friday when they clinched a deal understood to amount to £58million for Real Sociedad’s 22-year-old Sweden international striker Alexander Isak - in the process taking their spending since the club’s new owners took up the reins to around £210million.

It is all a far cry from Howe’s early days at Bournemouth, when he operated on a shoestring budget and had to develop the players he already had, but he is adamant he still goes about recruitment in the same way.

Asked about the contrast, the 44-year-old said: “I feel exactly the same to be honest.

“In my early days, we were looking at free transfers, out-of-contract players, but you are still trying to find the right fit for your team.

“You’re trying to find the right characters who will benefit the group. Then you have to mould those players around the team.

“It doesn’t change, the process is exactly the same. What does change is the perception of everyone else because you’re outlaying a big sum of money for a player but the process does not change.

“You still have to find the right player and you have to visualise that player in your team, performing well and what he will bring.”

Isak, the club’s fourth summer acquisition after Matt Targett, Nick Pope and Sven Botman, could have his first chance to impress at Wolves this afternoon with Callum Wilson in the treatment room again.

His fee dwarfs the £40million Newcastle

paid Hoffenheim for Joelinton during the summer of 2019 and while Howe admits a measure of discomfort at the ever-escalating transfer market he will not spend for spending’s sake.

Asked if Isak’s price tag represented value for money he added: “I definitely feel a responsibility to the price, it wouldn’t be a case of signing a player at any cost. I don’t think that’s the right way to act.

“Transfer prices are out of any type of realism from when I was playing but you just have to adapt to the times. If you don’t you don’t improve.”