After an opening day victory at Bolton, Newcastle United boss Sam Allardyce thanked chairman Chris Mort for his support in the summer market.

"We've invested well, I've spent more than I've ever spent this summer and I'm grateful for that," explained a manager who has so far signed seven players. "I'm fortunate to have that, I've been able to invest more on transfer fees and more on wages and I've got bigger and better players. When you do that you have more quality, you can play better football. When you don't, it's about upsetting bigger and better teams, it's about embarrassing them and it's something you don't get credit for. You're doing it with lesser players and that makes you better than them. But it also means people start saying you're something you're not."