Ambitious Newcastle United face test of European credentials against Liverpool

Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe had a sympathetic word on Tuesday for the man freshly removed from his old job at Bournemouth.

He was “surprised and disappointed” for Scott Parker, sacked four matches after having led Bournemouth back into the Premier League. “He did a brilliant job,” said Howe, careful not to judge the club that he himself guided to two promotions “without knowing what’s going on there”.

One thing Howe does know about Bournemouth’s haste in changing their manager is that a 9-0 loss to Liverpool on Saturday had a lot to do with the timing of it.

The humiliation provoked Parker into pointing out how little Bournemouth had invested in reinforcing their squad for the challenges of England’s top division, calling them “underprepared”. The numbers back him up. In the Premier League, only Leicester City went into the last 48 hours of the summer transfer window having spent less than the Cherries.

At the other end of the money table are Howe’s Newcastle. They will take on goal-glut Liverpool this evening with a balance sheet for 2022 that currently shows the highest net spend on players not just in the Premier League but of any club across Europe’s major leagues – a huge leap up in the club’s influence in the market, a statement of ambition from the club’s principal backers, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Howe has a particular perspective on the scale of the transformation. Since he was appointed as manager last November, a month after the takeover of the club by a consortium in which PIF have much the largest stake, Newcastle have paid out as much in fees for new signings as Bournemouth did across the five years that Howe skilfully managed them in the Premier League, until they dropped down