Newcastle has never been the same as Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City in terms of player transfers. I mean, Newcastle management is more concerned with long-term projects by building squad depth gradually rather than spending a lot of money in one transfer season. This policy can certainly help them save a lot of money on purchasing players, but they also prioritize quality.
They actually trying to avoid the situation we are have been seeing in Psg in the recent years, is not only about the squad depth, the players needs to respect the coach and each others so they will continue to build with the players of the same class and as time goes by qualities of these players will increase.
You are right, Newcastle is a rich club, but they don't seem to be in too much of a rush to build depth in their squad with a number of star players. Eddie Howe is an influential coach, but unfortunately Newcastle's performance this season has not lived up to the expectations of many fans. The defeat to Liverpool was their 9th defeat of the season in the Premier League, so they are in a decline in form compared to last season.
I can say their decline in forms is from their injury crisis while they are inconsistent this season, we can say this season has been quite competitive than last season and so I think they need to work well on their winning mentality because in the end that differentiate every quality team from each other.
The competition for the Premier League title is becoming more and more exciting! Manchester City is showing incredible form in their recent matches, and I can clearly see their determination to succeed. The top four teams, especially Liverpool, are not giving up either. Aston Villa is putting in a commendable effort, making the points difference not as significant.
The league is getting tougher by the day especially at this late time of the season because the competition between Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Arsenal is very strong that you can hardly see a club lasting longer on the premier League first position because almost all the above mentioned club has tested the premier League first position but could not stay long, so perhaps right now is very difficult to predict the winner because there performance are almost equal but however with the way things are going if Liverpool remains consistent on there performance they will stand on a higher chance of wining the league.
I will actually exclude Tottenham and Aston villa from the list of title contenders but they can be considered top 4 contenders while Arsenal is the least among the 3 (Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City) to win the league since they are more inconsistent. If Liverpool really want to win the league, they already know that they need to avoid losing or drawing games since Man City is not a team to give such opportunity because it will be hard to get it back from them just like what happened between Man City and Arsenal last season