Man City offer Newcastle United a bruising reality check in billion pound battle

Eddie Howe will have spent this week doing everything he can to help Newcastle beat Manchester City.

If he is able to, it will be in no small part down to having spent more than two years since their takeover trying to be like Manchester City. Amanda Staveley, who was also involved in City's 2008 takeover, boldly promised in her role in the new Newcastle ownership that they had the same ambitions as the Blues and there have been moves to align more closely ever since.

Two big moves came off the field with the introduction of Darren Eales as CEO and Dan Ashworth as sporting director to install a new hierarchy at the club. There has also been investment in the academy that has included taking both players and staff directly from City; Paul McLaren left the Blues to head up Newcastle's youth recruitment and 18-year-old Alfie Harrison was signed in the January transfer window.

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However, there hasn't been the huge spending that characterised previous takeovers. That is in part down to tightened spending rules that weren't originally in place for City (or Chelsea or others for that matter) that limit the amount of investment that can be made and treated as a loss; Howe said on Friday that a squad overhaul would be 'almost impossible' because of the Profit & Sustainability Rules in place.

Just as Financial Fair Play arrived in time to tell the world that the Abu Dhabi United Group making annual losses to invest in City's squad was bad, now the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia cannot find a way to spend