Newcastle Must Prioritise Signing a New Striker to Avoid Relegation Battle Next Season
Goals matter in football. It's hardly a new revelation, but it seems to be one that continues to elude the higher-ups of Newcastle United.
The Magpies scraped by through the miracle working of manager Rafa Benitez last season, somehow achieving tenth position without having any kind of a reliable goalscorer. Ayoze Perez finished as Newcastle's top goalscorer in the league...with just eight goals.
That kind of luck won't come around again.
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Should the Magpies fail to sign a reliable, goal-getting striker in this summer transfer window then it could very well be a return to the nail-biting nervousness of final day football once again for the Tyneside club.
Newcastle fans have no desire to return to those days anytime soon.
However, that is the route the club is currently taking. Teams around them continue to strengthen and improve, while Newcastle have once again spluttered and stalled so early in the transfer window.
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With Aleksandar Mitrovic still looking likely to depart for Fulham this summer, it leaves Newcstle with a strike force of just Dwight Gayle and Joselu ahead of the new campaign.
Perez technically counts there too, as he has dutifully filled the role in the past, but by trade he is naturally an attacking midfielder.
Excluding Perez, it's a combined total of just ten Premier League goals last season. When your entire striking department can only muster ten goals in a combined 65 appearances, you've got serious problems.
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Benitez can only work his magic so far, and if he continues to be left with glaring faults like the lack of a good striker, then very soon even he is going to fail to save the Magpies.
The options being thrown around by the board and club aren't much more convincing, either.
Talk of a record-breaking bid for Alassane Plea sounded pleasing - it was just what the fans wanted to hear - but little materialised and, as the Frenchman now joins Borussia Monchengladbach in Germany, it remains to be found out just how much of that talk was actually true.
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The other option being brought to the table repeatedly is a £16.5m move for relegated West Brom striker Salomon Rondon.
It's a transfer that, should Newcastle actually sign a striker this summer, is probably the most likely to happen, but it's hardly one that fills the fans with much confidence.
The Venezuelan striker managed just seven goals for West Brom in the Premier League last season - which, while higher than the two Newcastle strikers, remains an underwhelming tally.
Rondon might come into his own under Benitez, like many Newcastle players have, but it seems an unhelpful gamble to take, especially when the Tyneside club have an owner like Mike Ashley at the helm.
A £16.5m outlay would likely be seen as that summer's big money signing, and as such Benitez would find himself with little extra financial support for the remainder of the window.
A striker like Rondon isn't the kind of player to take that kind of risk on. He couldn't help West Brom stay up, and should he be the striker Newcastle sign, he may very well find himself doing the exact same at St. James' Park.
The future of the situation is clear to all. Newcastle need a new striker. The club will be doomed to the relegation scrap if they do not improve their options up top.
However, it must be a quality signing, not just plucking the cheapest option out of the recently relegated bargain bucket.
It's set to be a nervy transfer window for Newcastle fans once again, and should there not be a new striker in the door come the season's start, it could very well be a nervy campaign ahead.
