18 hours ago
4
Guardian writers’ predicted position: 7th (NB: this is not necessarily Louise Taylor’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: 5th
Prospects
A Champions League campaign beckons and there is the Carabao Cup to defend but the removal of Alexander Isak’s image from the windows of Newcastle’s club store at St James’ Park is emblematic of a troubled Tyneside summer. As if the Sweden striker’s decision to skip the club’s tour of Singapore and South Korea while trying to force a move to Liverpool was not bad enough, a succession of transfer targets have turned Newcastle down.
Hugo Ekitiké, Bryan Mbeumo, João Pedro, James Trafford and Benjamin Sesko opted to move to Liverpool, London or Manchester as the majority Saudi Arabian-owned club operated without a sporting director and chief executive. The good news is that Eddie Howe is an excellent coach and possesses plenty of high-calibre players, Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimarães, Anthony Elanga, Joelinton and Anthony Gordon foremost among them. Throw in the arrivals of Anthony Elanga, Aaron Ramsdale and, almost certainly, Malick Thiaw and last season’s starting XI has been fortified in goal, central defence and on the right wing.
The need for a couple of strikers and, above all, a resolution to Isak’s flirtation with Liverpool remains pressing. Howe’s admission that he “wants players that really want to play for this football club” suggests the manager has had enough of Isak but much depends on the expected impending financial haggling between Newcastle’s owners and the Anfield board. Meanwhile Newcastle have failed to win a pre-season fixture. “It’s been a challenging summer,” Howe reflected. “But any season can go one of two ways. Things are never as good or as bad as you think. At the moment I’m very neutral. I believe that from tough moments you can build something even more special than you had before.”
The manager
Any concerns that Howe could flounder away from his south-coast comfort zone have been well and truly banished during the near four years the former Bournemouth manager has spent on Tyneside. The workaholic 47-year-old is an outstanding coach who, in the course of leading Newcastle into the Champions League for the second time in three seasons and choreographing the Carabao Cup triumph, has improved a series of players beyond measure. Joelinton’s startling metamorphosis from struggling centre-forward to gamechanging midfielder is testament to Howe’s talents. Although an excellent, highly articulate communicator, Newcastle’s piano-playing manager does not dispense trust easily and, publicly at least, is a master of circumspection.
Off-field picture
Despite the gargantuan wealth of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Newcastle’s relatively skinny commercial revenue streams dictate their spending is restricted by Premier League profitability and sustainability rules. Fans, and some players, are frustrated by the Saudis’ failure to deliver a new training ground, and a decision as to whether to revamp St James’ Park or build a new stadium keeps being postponed. It does not help that the club have spent the past 11 months seeking a new chief executive after the outgoing Darren Eales’s blood cancer diagnosis and have been without a sporting director this summer in the wake of Paul Mitchell’s abrupt exit in June, after less than a year in the job. Since the ousting of the former minority owner Amanda Staveley and her husband, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, last summer the lack of an Arabist and/or an executive conversant with Saudi business culture in Newcastle’s UK hierarchy has created an apparent disconnect.
Star signing
The £55m signing of Elanga from Nottingham Forest ends Howe’s long-running quest for a new right winger. “I want to showcase my talent,” says the rapid-dribbling 23-year-old Sweden international. “I’m pacey and direct. I can play on either side, I can play as a striker. I can use both feet. I’ve got lots of weapons. I know the gaffer and staff here can take my game to another level. What we want to achieve, how we want to play, it’s perfect. What we’re building here is unique and special. As soon as I knew about Newcastle’s interest it was a no brainer.” Howe has long been impressed by a player whose solitary work on his left foot during lockdown has left Elanga two-footed. “I’ve got a saying where I’m precise, not rushed,” says the former Manchester United winger. “It’s a French saying, precis pas précipité, something I go by a lot. In my life, I’ve never rushed anything.”
Stepping up
Lewis Miley is 19 but looks very much the complete midfielder and holds two England Under-21 caps. After breaking into Newcastle’s first team during the 2023-24 campaign, a 6ft 2in player with an eye for goal, equally at home in a defensive or attacking midfield role, was restricted to 14 appearances last season. If a back injury was partly responsible, the best youngster to emerge from Newcastle’s academy for a very long time faced stiff completion from Tonali, Guimarães and Joelinton for a starting spot in Howe’s midfield trinity. The demands of a Champions League campaign should create more opportunities this term when Miley can show he is capable of providing real competition for Guimarães and co.
A big season for …
At 27 Aaron Ramsdale has suffered three relegations from the Premier League (with Bournemouth, Sheffield United and Southampton), been bought by Arsenal for £30m and won five England caps. He joins on loan from Southampton and will compete with Nick Pope for a starting place. Howe, Ramsdale’s old Bournemouth manager, admires his footwork and regards his former protege as the sort of goalkeeper needed to advance Newcastle’s stylistic evolution. But is Ramsdale really a better all-round keeper than Pope? Can he recapture the form that once made him Arsenal’s first choice? And can he assuage Newcastle’s disappointment at seeing Manchester City hijack their move for Trafford, the gifted former Burnley goalkeeper?
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