An advert for legal counsel at Newcastle United appeared on LinkedIn last month that caught the eye. “We’re at the start of a journey,” the preamble read. “Newcastle United’s new owners have one ambition: to be the best football club in the world.”
In a city already giddy with possibility, it was immediately picked up. Even a careful rewording of the advert a few hours later – changing it to “global force”, perhaps aware of the implications of the initial statement – couldn’t dampen the feeling at Newcastle that there is a new horizon for the Magpies’ ambition.
“The ambition is absolutely there,” a senior source told i. “But what people don’t realise is all the work being done in the background to make it happen.” Those with knowledge of the plans say the devil is in the detail – a £95million transfer window spend was crucial, but so is the painstaking level of planning that has been going into transforming every aspect of the club.
At the centre of Newcastle’s big leap forward, for example, will be a renewed and improved relationship with analytics and data, an area where the club are depressingly late to the party but have some grand ambitions.
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But that is simply the beginning. i understands the club are looking into eventually developing their own in-house data and research department that could rival the Reds’ best-in-class operation, which has been credited with enabling them to steal a march on rivals like Manchester City who can command greater resources.
The ability to turn the reams of data available to clubs into effective insights around recruitment and match analysis is increasingly viewed as the new frontier for Premier League clubs – and Newcastle’s new owners are understood to be fascinated by the potential of putting data at the centre of their restructure.
An announcement on a new CEO – who will likely come from outside the world of football – is expected before the end of the season while Dan Ashworth move from Brighton to St James’ Park is – in the words of one senior source – the club’s “Big Bang moment” when everything will begin to come together.
Ashworth is seen as the man who can knit Newcastle’s lofty ambitions together and deliver a strategy which will underpin a big summer transfer window. United, for what it’s worth, believe they can tempt both Jesse Lingard and Sven Botman to the club if they manage to stay up. They would be statement acquisitions.
But in many ways, the biggest move they’ve made is to secure Ashworth. A serious player in the world of football, his decision to join the nascent revolution on Tyneside adds real gravitas to the work they’re doing. Others will follow.
“He is one of the leaders in terms of putting Director of Football role on the map,” Mike Rigg, the founder of the Association of Sporting Directors and a friend of Ashworth’s told i.
“He is an extremely capable strategic operator. He’s not driven by the emotions that we know this game causes – the transfer window, results. Dan’s able to think about decisions as part of a plan.
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“He’s got the enviable ability to be as comfortable with a tracksuit on as he is with a suit on. That’s what a really effective sporting director can do – sell the plan to the owners on the boardroom but also go to the sideline and talk to the coaches and sell the plan. Not many people are capable of pulling that off.”
The mood is giddy on Tyneside. Impressively so considering the battle against relegation still rages, with the visit of Brighton preceding a run of tough fixtures in the Spring.
As Rigg warns: “Dan’s not superhuman – he can’t do it on his own. It’s not that he’s going in and they’ll win the Premier League in two or three years. He will not be able to do it single handedly. It’s a big job.”
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