Here are some names that all belong together: Christian Pulisic, Jadon Sancho, Tanguy Ndombele, Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Jack Grealish, Harry Maguire, Riyad Mahrez, Romelu Lukaku (again), Andriy Shevchenko ... and Chris Wood?
That's a list of the most expensive Premier League signings by age. Pulisic is England's most expensive 20-year-old, Lukaku is the most expensive 24- and 28-year-old, and after moving from Burnley to Newcastle on Thursday for £25 million, Wood became the most expensive 30-year-old in the history of the richest league in the world.
Are you laughing yet? No? Well, you can start now.
The takeover of Newcastle by the Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, immediately turned the club into the richest sports franchise on the planet. The news had Geordies in keffiyehs partying outside of St. James's Park, bragging about how much money their club suddenly had. Dreaming of a hyper-speed transformation into a potentially bigger and better version of Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain, with future Ballon d'Or winners dancing up and down the field ... now they've got Wood.
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The gigantic Kiwi scored 46 goals in his four previous full Premier League seasons, and he scored at least 10 goals in each one. Wood was consistent, Wood was good -- in an elegant, battering-ram type of way. But Wood is 30, right around the age when most goal-scorers suddenly stop scoring goals, which is exactly what has happened. Through 17 matches this season, he has scored three times. He's taking both fewer shots and worse shots than ever before. He's 29th in the league in total expected goals, per the site FBref, and he's 39th in xG per 90 minutes. He has been one of the worst starting strikers in the league.
While I can't scientifically prove it, it feels safe to say that no other soccer club in the world would've paid £25 million for the opportunity to sign Wood to a contract. But here's the thing: Wood could get injured in training tomorrow, never play a single minute for Newcastle United, and he still might be worth it.
One of the many benefits of essentially "unlimited" money is that you don't really have to plan. Most teams need to figure out how to balance short-term with long-term thinking. Do you acquire and play younger players who might not perform as well immediately, but might maximize your potential in a couple years? Or do you stack up a bunch of prime-age players who won't get better, but max out your chances right now? Do you bring in a manager with a playing philosophy that might take a while to install, but could eventually reap major rewards? Or do you go for the pragmatist who won't last long, but will immediately get the most out of whatever roster you give him?
Newcastle's new owners clearly want the club to serve the same purpose that Manchester City or PSG have served for theirs: increased influence within the halls of the world's most popular sport. To do that, their team is going to have to start winning the Premier League and making noise in the Champions League. But in order to win the Premier League, you, uh, have to be in the Premier League, and if the season ended today, Newcastle United would not be in the Premier League next season. So, all they care about right now is not getting relegated.
The Magpies don't have to think about the future; they can use their massive resource advantage to do whatever they can to increase their chances of staying up. And if it doesn't work, they can continue to use that massive resource advantage to deal with the fallout.
Right now, Newcastle are in 19th place on 11 points -- two points back of 17th-place Watford, who still have a game in hand -- and there's very little to suggest that the players on the roster will produce something better than that over the second half of the season. Per FBref, Newcastle have the worst per-game xG differential of all the teams in Europe's Big Five leagues. FiveThirtyEight's projection system gives them just a 25% chance of staying up.
They have two issues, then: They're awful, and they're already in a hole.
Earlier this month, the analyst Ben Torvaney tried to estimate what level Newcastle would have to play at over the remainder of the season in order to avoid relegation. If they suddenly played like Manchester City over their next 19 games, he found, they'd be all but guaranteed to avoid relegation. Playing like Tottenham or Arsenal would give them a likelihood of somewhere between 80 or 90 percent of staying up. And to break 50 percent -- to be slightly more likely to stay up than be relegated -- they'd have to play like Aston Villa or Wolverhampton for the rest of the season.
Looking at it this way, the acquisition of Kieran Trippier makes sense. At 31, the full-back is not the player he once was, but he has still been starting for Atletico Madrid, a team that's better than Villa and Wolverhampton. Of course, the move for Wood completely crumbles against this same logic. Stealing a player from Burnley might help you play at the level of Burnley, and Burnley are currently in the relegation zone, too.
However, stealing a player from Burnley means something else, too: That player no longer plays for Burnley.
It appears that the reason Newcastle acquired Wood is because they wanted a striker, then they became aware that he was one of the few players in England with a release clause in his contract, and so it was easy enough for them to just pay the clause and not have to do any negotiation with the club they're buying from. Plus, it was easy to convince Wood to come because they can pay him a lot more money than he was making at Burnley. I don't think this is why Newcastle made the deal, but a perhaps unintended consequence of their desperation is that they've made one of their direct rivals for relegation worse.
"In theory, Burnley getting worse should reduce the amount Newcastle need to improve," Torvaney said. How much it reduces those chances, though, is a tougher question to answer. "There's a lot of uncertainty around how much impact Chris Wood's departure has," he said.
However, the January window is defined by uncertainty. Analysis by the consultancy 21st Group has found that in the Big Five leagues, teams that spent €30 million more than average in January only increased their performance by 0.1 points per game -- essentially, a point or two over half of a season. The limited returns are especially pronounced with strikers who, according to 21st Group, make up about 20% of all January transfers. Just 14% of those strikers score at least five goals in their first half season with their new club, and a whopping 55% don't score a single goal.
While Wood has struggled for Burnley this season, he has still accounted for 26% of the club's non-penalty expected goals this season, the 10th-highest figure in the Premier League. And over the previous four seasons, Wood scored 29% of Burnley's goals, the 10th-highest figure for any player across Europe's Big Five leagues.
This season, Burnley's leading scorer is Maxwell Cornet, who has six goals from just two xG and is at the Africa Cup of Nations right now, not with Burnley. Without Wood, their only other multigoal scorer is Ben Mee, a centerback. While Burnley received a way-bigger-than-market-value sum for Wood, they'll now have to delve into the historically inefficient January striker market to try to replace him, or hope that there's somehow a better option hidden at the club who Sean Dyche didn't realize would be an improvement on Wood.
According to 21st Group's projections, Wood's transfer increases Burnley's odds of getting relegated from 47% to 56%, while it decreases Newcastle's chances of being sent down from 76% to 68%. Those numbers account for what they expect Wood to add to Newcastle's performance, but even if Wood never played a game for Newcastle, 21st Group would still increase Burnley's relegation odds up to 54% and in turn lower Newcastle's from 76 to 74%.
Unlike all of the variables and uncertainties that come with not just adding, but attempting to integrate, a new signing midway through the season, this deal presents Newcastle with a rare absolute: Chris Wood no longer plays for Burnley. For almost any other club in the world, that wouldn't be worth it. But for Newcastle, what's £25 million if it gets you a couple more percentage points closer to accomplishing the only thing you care about doing? After all, they can always spend for another striker if they want, too.
Watch out, Watford. You could be next.