AS Eddie Howe spelled out earlier this month, there’s not much point being the ‘richest club in the world’ if you’re not allowed to spend the money.

The fairness or otherwise of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability regulations can be debated all day, with the £105m loss limit increasingly looking like a means of maintaining the ‘big six’ cartel rather than a genuine attempt to prevent financial implosion, but the reality is that the rules are not going to change significantly any time soon, and with Everton’s ten-point penalty having focused minds, Newcastle United’s owners are adamant they will not be breaking them.

So, while this month’s transfer window might have proved an unexpectedly traumatic experience on Tyneside, with the potential for more uncomfortable moments ahead of next Thursday’s deadline, it has also served a useful purpose in terms of recalibrating expectations and ambitions, both internally within the fanbase and externally in terms of how Newcastle are viewed by a national and international audience.

After last season’s exploits, the narrative had become untethered from the reality of the situation Newcastle were actually operating within. ‘If you’ve qualified for the Champions League once, you should be able to do it every season’. ‘Build on finishing fourth, and you’ll be challenging Manchester City for the title’. ‘When is Neymar arriving again?’

Newcastle overachieved massively last term, partly because of players overperforming, Eddie Howe’s astute management and some major successes in the transfer market, and partly because the Magpies benefited from a lack of European football creating a succession of blank weeks for training and lightening the playing load, resulting in relatively few injuries.

Most of what went right last season has gone wrong in the current campaign – injuries have piled up, the schedule throughout the autumn and winter was relentless, key players have struggled for form, none of the summer signings have made the kind of impact that would have been hoped for – but even if some of the misfortune had been avoided, it is becoming increasingly clear that it would have been all-but-impossible for Newcastle to have improved on last season’s efforts, or even come close to staging a repeat.

Are you really a member of the established elite if you’re pondering having to sell Miguel Almiron just to be able to make a signing in the next two transfer windows? In an era of strictly-enforced FFP, can you realistically hope to become top-four regulars if your annual income is less than half that of Tottenham’s and more than £500m short of what Manchester City are earning?

That is where Newcastle find themselves at the moment – shooting for the stars, but brought crashing back down to earth whenever the realities of the balance sheet are forensically assessed.

This has been a sobering transfer window, with the vultures circling for Almiron, Kieran Trippier, Callum Wilson and Jamaal Lascelles, and doubts over the long-term futures of Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton and Alexander Isak, but at least no one can now be in any doubt as to the trajectory that Newcastle will have to plot over the next couple of years as they attempt to rapidly grow their revenue streams.

The Northern Echo: Miguel Almiron is the subject of transfer interest from Saudi ArabiaMiguel Almiron is the subject of transfer interest from Saudi Arabia (Image: PA)

There can still be ambition, but it has to be realistic. Newcastle are currently tenth in the Premier League table and head to Fulham on Saturday in the fourth round of the FA Cup. There is no reason why they should not be targeting European qualification and a place at Wembley this term, and it is right that questions are raised about some of the decisions that have contributed to the difficulties experienced in the first half of the season. Newcastle’s summer transfer business was poor, even accounting for the misfortune of Sandro Tonali’s gambling ban, and Howe’s lack of tactical flexibility, particularly when he has been running out of midfielders, has felt counterproductive.

Nevertheless, a sober assessment would surely conclude that the club’s current position is probably about par for the course given everything that has been thrown at them and the constraints they are having to operate within. This has certainly not been a season of overachievement like the last one, but nor has it been the complete disaster it has been painted as in some quarters.

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Even before the takeover, Newcastle were regarded as a curiosity by the more rabid elements of the national media. Since passing into the hands of the Saudis, they have become the go-to club for rabble-rousing and headline-grabbing. ‘Howe has to go’. ‘Where are the big-name signings?’ ‘When will the fans begin to turn?’

On Tyneside, the mood is much less fraught. Yes, there is a degree of disappointment at failing to get beyond the group stage of the Champions League, losing in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup and slipping into a mid-table position in the Premier League. But there is also an acceptance that the season is hardly the disaster it has been presented as in some quarters and there is certainly no groundswell to move against Howe.

Similarly, while there is understandable frustration at the lack of incoming transfers this month, and a degree of unease at the thought of some big players leaving in the next year or so, the majority of supporters appear willing to trust those currently running the club. You don’t have to look too far back to remember what things were like under Mike Ashley.

So, while the outside noise around Newcastle might seem fractious, those closest to the club understand what is going on. The richest club in the world? For now, a club that remains on the right track remains an acceptable state of affairs.