It is a month with the potential to make or possibly even break Newcastle United’s season.
Off-the-field there is a strangely familiar feeling of uncertainty at St James’ Park – both in the boardroom and, potentially, upcoming recruitment meetings that are scheduled for later this month.
On it there is a real sense that now is the time for the team to step up as they head into a challenging run of fixtures.
“There’s a real focus about the place at the moment,” a source told i this week.
“I think everyone knows this is a really important stage of the season and now is the time to show how good we really are.”
The fixture list
If the first two months of the season have been spent shadow-boxing, now is when the serious stuff begins. So far it feels like a par start to the season but you could spin 12 points from an available 21 in a lot of different ways – especially when performances have been largely mediocre and too often lacked fluency.
Every single one of Newcastle’s next four league games is against a team in the top half of the table, and three of them (Brighton, Arsenal and Chelsea) are against sides above them. A double header against Enzo Maresca’s upwardly mobile Blues – including a home cup tie in a competition Newcastle have targeted this season – will tell us so much about how good Newcastle are and can be.
To add to the intrigue the period is bookended by games against teams who were able to snatch two of their best young prospects from them during the club’s scramble not to breach the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) in the close season. Yankuba Minteh’s presence at St James’ Park on Saturday will feel bittersweet – he is one of their biggest scouting success stories of recent times but Newcastle fans never got to see him play for them.
A trip to Nottingham Forest on 10 November sees them reunited with Elliot Anderson, a player Eddie Howe wanted to lose even less. His early season form, and a starring role for England Under-21s in midweek, has heightened the sense of regret.
If Newcastle end this period still in the top six and into the next round of the Carabao Cup, it will feel like job done.
Recruitment zooms into focus once more
Since Paul Mitchell’s set-piece interview in September, things have settled down at St James’ Park. A source told i the pair were in “almost total alignment” when they spoke last month with “any marginal differences on approach when it comes to recruitment” now behind them. A red line has been established that no player will be signed without Howe’s absolute approval.
But we are approaching the point where signing suggestions need to be hardened up and Mitchell’s much-vaunted tweak of approach is put into practice. His data-aligned approach of casting the net wider than Newcastle have previously needs to yield results – and he must tread a bit more carefully than he did in the summer, when tension rose to the surface.
i understands that with Sven Botman making good progress on his recovery the focus has switched from centre-back to attempting to bring a right winger and potentially another striker in during January.
But just as crucial will be their approach to sales, an area where they have flunked the test during 2024. Their uncompromising attitude to Miguel Almiron’s potential transfer fee suggests Howe’s caution over selling first-team squad members might endure.
It feels like some compromises might have to be reached. If that can be done without the strain of the summer, we will know the page has been turned.
The big CEO call Newcastle have to make
Thankfully Darren Eales’ prognosis is positive after being diagnosed with chronic blood cancer last month. The health of Newcastle’s CEO, after all, puts sporting concerns firmly in perspective.
But his decision to step away leaves Newcastle with yet another big call to make on their senior management team. While Eales is likely to still be in place or helping with a handover period in January, the club have begun the process of identifying possible candidates for a role that is absolutely crucial to Newcastle’s future progress.
As well as balancing the demands of Mitchell and Howe in upcoming transfer windows, there is also a bulging in-tray off-the-field with sponsorship deals to seal and, most importantly, the St James’ Park expansion call to make in “early 2025”.
Newcastle insist they want to continue to attract high quality candidates and have the heft and ambition to do so. The likely successor will have a football background and one name floated to i was well-connected former Arsenal CEO Vinai Venkatesham, who spent 14 years in north London.
As we have seen from previous PIF recruitment processes, expect a thorough, meticulous and possibly long lead in time to a decision.
Tactical calls
There is mixed news for Howe on the injury front.
Kieran Trippier is unlikely to play before the next international break but the club’s caution on Alexander Isak should enable him to return for the Brighton game. Callum Wilson is also scheduled for a comeback – but there are no guarantees on that.
Howe has two problems to solve: Newcastle have ceded too much ground in midfield in some games while their forwards have been isolated when available.
Solving that while integrating Sandro Tonali into the engine room and getting the best out of Isak is an issue that feels critical to Newcastle’s hopes.
The ‘next stage’ of the PSR plan
While Newcastle are eyeing Manchester City’s Associated Party Transaction row with the Premier League with interest, there is no prospect of mega sponsorship deals with PIF being game changing for the club anytime soon.
A softly, softly approach to working with possible Saudi Arabian partners continues, with one source emphasising to i that any deals “need to make business sense” rather than just being seen as a way to funnel cash to Newcastle.
So the new club megastore opening at St James’ Park represents a big moment for the club. They have taken their merchandising and retail operations in-house, investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in building a new operation to support them on the ground and online. The gleaming new premises – which will come with photo opportunities throughout – represent a new desire to improve commercial revenue.
And in the age of PSR that is crucial.
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