Newcastle owners send Premier League warning to Man City and Manchester United

Newcastle's owners have sent a Premier League warning to both Manchester City and Manchester United.

Mike Ashley's long and unsuccessful reign at St James' Park came to an end last year when a Saudi-backed regime completed a takeover.

Having replaced Steve Bruce with Eddie Howe, Mehrdad Ghodoussi and Amanda Staveley spent big in January to try and drag Newcastle out of a relegation battle.

However, staying in the top flight is only a short-term objective for the new owners and they've revealed their dreams for the Toon Army.

Speaking to The Athletic, Ghodoussi said: "There is no reason why Newcastle in the next five years should not be a Man City or a Man Utd or a Liverpool or a Chelsea."

Staveley recently visited City's training complex and said of her experience: "Just to talk to them and see their training facilities, to see what we can do.

"I was thinking, ‘God, I can’t wait for our guys to get their trophies, I can’t wait to deliver what the fans really deserve'.”

The pair claim Howe can be the man to lead Newcastle to future silverware, despite their pursuit of Unai Emery prior to the former Bournemouth boss' appointment.

“We got down to two people,” Ghodoussi said of the process to replace Steve Bruce.

"Eddie was one of them and Unai Emery the other. Unai had a track record of success and maybe that made us move towards him a bit more. I have to say, though, that the chairman [Yasir Al-Rumayyan] wanted Eddie from day one.”

“Eddie was actually ahead of everybody on points,” Staveley added. “When you looked at his data, he was fantastic."

“I would love Eddie to be the next Alex Ferguson,” Ghodoussi concluded.