MAGPIES EYE SILVERWARE

Newcastle United's rise up the English Premier League table this season will be a worry for rivals, because the Magpies are only just getting started, writes Nick Said

Whatever your views on Newcastle United and their ownership, the one thing that cannot be denied is that this is a club going places, with a good crop of players and an excellent manager in Eddie Howe.

But it is only the beginning for them and it is not inconceivable that they could go on to dominate the global club scene in the next decadel The simple reason behind that is that the club coffers are a bottomless pit, filled to the brim with gold that makes them the richest club in the world.

The owner of the team, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, is worth £320 billion. To put that into perspective, Manchester City's owner. Sheikh Mansour, is reportedly worth in the region of £23 billion.

Of course, financial fair-play rules mean that clubs cannot simply pump billions of pounds into their teams from day one, though City and Paris St Germain have successfully managed to skirt these regulations for years, and it will be a slow build.

But the potential of Newcastle, long viewed as a sleeping giant of the English game because of their huge support in the north east, is enormous over time and there are seemingly very few boundaries for them.