Lewis Miley is finally starting to make headway in the Newcastle United first-team, which means fears over his future are growing.
The Newcastle United academy has produced another top talent in Lewis Miley, and this looks like it will be his coming-of-age campaign.
Imagine a world where Newcastle United are FORCED to sell one player in January. Who should it be? Let us know!
Indeed, Miley’s immense performance against Everton was a real statement. He bagged a goal and an assist there, and was then kept in the starting line-up for the game against Spurs in midweek.
Newcastle United fans naturally love seeing Miley do well and are hopeful he can keep progressing with the senior squad. But, there are some concerns that he could be sold, given he would deliver pure profit for the Magpies.
What are Newcastle United’s accounts looking like?
We have already seen Newcastle sell one academy star and live to regret it, with Elliot Anderson’s departure largely due to PSR restrictions.
So, Geordie Boot Boys asked finance expert Adam Williams to shed some light on where the Magpies stand right now in terms of PSR to get a better picture of how likely another unwanted sale is.
He said: “Newcastle are in a good place with PSR – at least relative to some of the situations that they have found themselves in historically. They turned a small profit of about £1m in 2023-24, which until the next set of accounts are released in the spring remains the latest season for which we’ve got the full financial data.
“They are going to swing back to a loss in 2024-25 because their underlying losses in 2023-24 were nearly £70m, and that was a season when they had Champions League football, which of course they didn’t in 2024-25.
“But when you add back allowable expenses such as academy and infrastructure investment, as well as accounting for rising commercial income and a retail boom from the League Cup win, I don’t think they’ll be too far off a break-even point as far as PSR is concerned.
In 2025-26, they have the dual luxury of having Champions League income – both in terms of prize money and significant matchday receipts – and the profits of the Alexander Isak sale. So I’d suggest that they are not at all constrained by PSR in the January window, which of course is the final one which is going to come under PSR before we move to the Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) model.”
The new SCR system will help Newcastle more than PSR did, that’s for sure. The £105m loss limit will be removed, and that’s why we’re feeling positive about the Magpies’ hopes of keeping Miley.
- READ MORE: Newcastle United’s Elliot Anderson PSR dilemma revealed as ‘bizarre’ £22m-a-year deal mooted
Do Newcastle need to sell Lewis Miley?
The good news is, Adam Williams is confident the teenage sensation will stay put. Miley is keen to play more for Newcastle anyway, and we believe Newcastle have no plan to sell Miley either.
On the need for the player to be sold, Williams added: “There is zero pressure on them to sell Miley.”
Eddie Howe on Lewis Miley. Does he need to play more often now?
“When you see him play, he plays with a real maturity. He very rarely gets flustered about anything, he’s very level and very calm.
“Not your normal average teenager.”
In fact, he thinks the new financial model will actually make it less likely for teams to be trying to sell their brightest academy talents.
Williams concluded: “In terms of how ‘pure profit’ sales will be treated under the new regime, there are a couple of different ways of looking at it. On the one hand, player sale profits still count towards the allowance but are averaged out over three years, so one-off sales won’t have the same level of impact.
“On the flip side, because academy-produced players don’t have any amortisation associated with them, they are going to eat into your Squad Cost spending less than a player who you signed for, say, £50m. So I think the new system won’t actively incentivise the sale of players like Miley, unlike the old PSR regime.”
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