Why a quietly announced transfer is so crucial to Newcastle's future and proves there's only one right answer to their stadium dilemma if they want to reach the elite, writes IAN LADYMAN

At the start of what has felt like a huge week for Newcastle came possibly the most depressing bulletin of the whole transfer window. Manager Eddie Howe confirmed that yet another talented Newcastle player had been moved on for reasons other than football. Before Newcastle kicked Arsenal emphatically out through the front door of St James’ Park on Wednesday night, 26-year-old Lloyd Kelly had slipped quietly out the back.

Kelly – a defender only signed from Bournemouth last summer on a free transfer – joined Juventus on loan and will sign permanently for £20million at the season’s end. He joins Elliot Anderson – £35m to Nottingham Forest – and Yankuba Minteh – £30m to Brighton – who were sold last summer and all in the name of staying the right side of the Premier League’s financial regulations. We can argue all day long about this. There are those who will rail persistently about the failures of the spending rules, about how they restrict competition and put a lid on ambition. And they are broadly right.

Lloyd Kelly made just 14 appearances for Newcastle after joining on a free transfer last summer. Kelly has joined Juventus on an initial loan that will become permanent for £20m in the summer. Equally, without any kind of restrictions at all, a club like Newcastle – backed by Saudi Arabia – would by now have had Jude Bellingham, Mohamed Salah and Vinicius Junior on million-pound-a-week contracts and everybody else would be playing a different kind of sport.

What is beyond doubt is that until something gives, until such time the Premier League and European rules become smarter, more flexible and more nuanced, a club like Newcastle will remain stuck, held back by the limitations of its infrastructure and its own ability to make money. And this is why this week we have all been looking at artist’s impressions of a new Newcastle United stadium. Nobody has yet called it the Wembley of the North or asked the taxpayer to help pay for it but – with a predicted capacity of 70,000 – it is starting to feel as fundamental to Newcastle as a new Old Trafford would be to Manchester United.

Newcastle’s season remains progressive. Sixth in the Premier League and now in the final of the Carabao Cup. But that is progress that has Howe’s name on it and has come against a background of relative parsimony as Newcastle have tried to claw back some of the money spent in the early days of Gulf ownership. Howe’s team struggled last season to remain competitive. The weight of Champions League and domestic fixtures proved too great.

So they needed to come again this season but had no choice to do so on the back of a negative summer spend. Newcastle's season remains progressive - sixth in the league and into the Carabao Cup final. There's only one answer to Newcastle's stadium dilemma as they mull whether to knock down St James' Park and build a new ground. Newcastle will not be successful consistently until they find a way to make more money.

At exactly the time it should have been growing – in terms of depth and quality – Howe’s squad was actually doing exactly the opposite. And this cannot go on. Not if Newcastle wish to be what we have long thought they should be. Competitive and compelling and successful and full of stories. Newcastle haven’t won a domestic trophy for 70 years, which is the kind of thing you have to say twice to really believe.

They have much of what they need in place now. But they will not be successful consistently until they find a way to make more money. They are the Tottenham of 2025, only with owners who once they have earned it will be more than happy to spend it. Tottenham are always a good reference point in conversations like this. Their stadium is a wonderful thing. You have to visit it to understand it. It’s phenomenal in every way. But it’s also a cash machine.

White Hart Lane turned over £1m every match day. The new place does £6m a game. Tottenham's brilliant new stadium offers a blueprint for Newcastle to grow revenue. Newcastle must build on the fanaticism and obsession of their adoring supporters. Times that by 19 Premier League games and throw in cup matches, European fixtures, American football, rugby league and pop concerts and you can see a road to a new kind of future stretching out before you.

This is what a new stadium does for Newcastle. This is the road they need to walk. Because it allows them to build on fanaticism and obsession. It allows them to milk and squeeze an audience born to the creed of the black and white. Naming rights deals can help with all this. Expanding St James’ Park can help with all this. The club are looking at the latter as an option, too. But neither will open the door as wide as Newcastle really need it to go.

Few people ever go to St James’ Park without an impression being left. It looked and sounded marvellous on Wednesday. But if there really is an opportunity to start again on almost the same plot of land, it surely must be taken. This is the crossroads to which Premier League rules have delivered Newcastle. If they make the wrong choice on this, it won’t be Lloyd Kelly they sell but – not now but eventually – it will be somebody like Alexander Isak.