It is getting close to 100 years since Newcastle United were champions of England, in 1927, and 2025 could be the year the club decide to leave St James’ Park. They still have the not inconsiderable wealth of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the headlock of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules to break free from and a resurgent team with the Champions League in their sights once more. These are complicated times.
January could be a third successive transfer window with no significant signing, but that could allow them in the summer to once again flex the financial might that had supporters celebrating outside St James’ Park in October 2021 when the takeover was completed.
Would qualifying for the Champions League again and the arrival of new signings be enough to persuade Alexander Isak to stay in the summer?
However it all plays out, the next six months are pivotal for the club. If there is to be a first big push to land the Premier League crown since the emotional anguish of the failed attempt in 1996, then certain bricks are being put in place and they should not be removed.
Newcastle have top players — Isak, Anthony Gordon, Joelinton, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães — momentum and hope. They have staggered forward for lengthy periods in the past 50 years without any of those.
Isak’s future will receive far more attention in the summer than this month, when it is debatable any club could get near a fee to even make Newcastle listen.
“There’s no part of me or anyone at Newcastle that wants to let Alex go,” Eddie Howe said. “He’s very much part of our long-term plans. Personally, I don’t see that being an issue.”
It remains the topic of debate about to what level the Newcastle head coach will allow his squad to be dismantled. It is worth remembering the reluctance Howe had in selling Chris Wood to Nottingham Forest for £15million in January 2023, when Newcastle first started to balance their books after significant spending, and then the June sale last year of the highly rated, locally produced attacking midfielder Elliot Anderson, again to Forest.
Those sales have in effect produced another Champions League rival in Forest, who are third in the table, two places and five points above Newcastle. Wood’s 11 goals have got them there and that will be at the forefront of Howe’s mind as he assesses the next two transfer windows.
So much emphasis has been on who to buy in January and then in the summer, but the real priority is of who not to sell. “The best players we have, they’re like gold dust,” Howe said. “They’re difficult to find, you’re not going to pick them up off the street.
“When you have them, you’ve got to cherish them and really care for them, and try to make the environment as strong as you can so they want to stay as part of that.”
It almost feels like a warning.
The futures of Kieran Trippier, Sean Longstaff and Miguel Almirón continue to have big question marks. Offers for any of the trio this month could trigger sales, but Howe will be reluctant to shrink a squad before a potential return to Europe. Newcastle should be learning as they go and the squad last season was woefully thin for an attempt on four competitions, as was shown.
There is no suggestion that Howe is pushing for any sales in the present window. Newcastle still want a right-sided forward — options include Anthony Elanga, Bryan Mbeumo and Antoine Semenyo — a right-sided central defender, such as Malick Thiaw or Marc Guéhi, and a young goalkeeper, such as James Trafford. Those targets are lofty and they will be doing well to get one of those three positions sorted before the January window closes.
It is a huge few months for the club. Developing St James’ Park to increase its 52,300-seat capacity or moving to a new stadium is one of the biggest decisions in recent memory.
An announcement led by the club’s chief operating officer, Brad Miller, is expected in the spring. The scale of a fight to develop land in Leazes Park should the club decide it is too restricted to expand St James’ Park should not be underestimated. It would be the kind of political battle that Newcastle under Saudi ownership have so far steered clear of, and, based on the backlash provoked when such a move was tried in 1995, could take years.
Newcastle fought against local conservation groups and Friends of the Earth for nearly two years. Even after they finally received the green light, the potential of more challenges, legal disputes and an astronomical project bill meant they scrapped plans for a stadium that would have had a capacity of 55,000, with the possibility of being expanded to 70,000. Instead they redeveloped St James’.
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Expanding the Gallowgate End and possibly the East Stand would cost in the region of £1billion. A new ground would be three times as expensive. Both projects would take years.
It was interesting, then, to see West Ham United, a club who moved stadium in 2016, announce an increase in turnover to £280million in their most recent accounts, less than Newcastle expect to post for 2024.
Howe insists that PIF’s plan on day one of the takeover — when the expressed desire was to win the Premier League and the Champions League within five to ten years — still remains in place, despite the introduction of Associated Party Transaction rules shortly afterwards.
“I don’t think a lowering of expectations has happened internally,” he said. “There hasn’t been one moment where we’ve gone, ‘We can’t do this,’ or, ‘We can’t achieve that.’
“I don’t think that’s healthy either. From my viewpoint, I would not encourage that from an internal perspective either, because your players will soon pick up if you’re not ambitious or think something is not possible. The dream is not over, it’s just going to take longer.”
Tottenham Hotspur v Newcastle United
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