Newcastle ‘can spend’ in January; Tino Livramento, Sven Botman in contract talks – Ross Wilson – The Athletic
Newcastle United have the capacity to spend in January and will aim to be “opportunistic” and “creative”, with discussions “ongoing” to extend Tino Livramento and Sven Botman’s contracts, insists Ross Wilson.
The sporting director arrived in October and immediately set about auditing the contract situation of key first-team players, as well as forecasting the potential business Newcastle would look to do during the mid-season trading period.
While substantive discussions are yet to take place with Eddie Howe, the head coach, regarding exactly what Newcastle will look to do next month, Wilson has revealed there is enough PSR (the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules) headroom for Newcastle to sign players, despite an initial outlay of £241million ($321.4m) last summer.
However, any incomings are likely to be prospective summer 2026 additions whose arrival is expedited due to availability and need. Full-backs and midfielders are the immediate priority, with AZ’s Kees Smit greatly admired, and a young forward is also being sought.
Wilson (left) with CEO David Hopkinson (Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)
“Basically, where we’re at right now is that Eddie and I haven’t spoken about what January looks like in terms of incomings,” Wilson told reporters during a roundtable interview at Shearer’s Bar at St James’ Park on Monday.
“What we’ve talked about is what the thoughts are about the squad right now. Where’s his head at with the squad we’ve already got? How does that look? How does he feel about that, the shape, the size of it? Individuals? That’s what we’ve spoken about up to now.
“The scouting work is always ongoing. The guys are doing loads of work with that all the time.
“Can we spend in January? Yes. If we want to, we can. I think it’s fairly obvious to everybody given the level of club spend in the summer that we’re not going to do that again in the winter window as well, for a variety of reasons. But if we want to spend, we can. Of course, we’ll be creative, of course we’ll be opportunistic as well.
“But probably the most important thing is that it would have to align with what the summer plan looks like, which is the bigger squad plan. All of those conversations are ongoing. We’ll have the ones about where Eddie sees the need in the squad, if at all.
“But for now, the conversations have been ‘What have we got?’, ‘What do we think about what we’ve got?’, ‘Where do we see this?’. Then let’s see how that fits into January and the next part of the conversation.”
Encouragingly, talks have already taken place with the representatives of Livramento and Botman to extend their present deals, which expire in 2028 and 2027 respectively.
Both have attracted interest in recent windows and Wilson has made it a priority to try and tie them down to new deals, even if he accepts that he does not yet know whether either will agree fresh terms.
When Wilson took over, he scrutinised the contract situation of every first-team squad member and uncovered that Sandro Tonali’s deal had been extended during the Italian’s ban, meaning he is tied down until 2029 at least, given Newcastle have an option to unilaterally extend that by a further year.
“My first three or four days in the job was when I found that Sandro’s contract situation was significantly better than the one I was expecting,” Wilson said. “My first days were about analysing contracts: ‘Where are we?’, ‘Where are we strong?’, ‘Where are we weak?’, ‘Where have we got issues?’
“It’s no secret at all that we would want to extend Tino’s contract and we would want to extend Sven Botman’s contract too. Those discussions are ongoing.
“Some discussions are more difficult than others, but the desire would be to keep those players. Will they agree those contracts? At the moment, I think it’s too early to say.”
