Newcastle United may be in for more short-term pain as a tough run of fixtures in January threatens to push them further out of the European places.
The New Year’s trip to Liverpool will be followed by the FA Cup derby with Sunderland next weekend. And there will be no postponement until February, with a home game against champions Manchester City ahead of a visit to Aston Villa to take on the side with the best home record in the Premier League.
It is highly unlikely that Eddie Howe’s side will go through this period undefeated and more defeats will lead to more external questions about his future as manager.
But Telegraph Sport has already revealed Howe’s job is among the safest in English football and after conversations with key figures behind the scenes at St James’ Park in recent days, there is every reason to be optimistic about what the future holds.
The Saudis will find ways to keep pumping money into the club
When Telegraph columnist Jamie Carragher wrote last week that it is impossible for Newcastle to win the kind of trophies that Chelsea and Manchester City have achieved with their own super-rich owners, he was right to an extent. Profit and sustainability rules are largely designed to prevent wealthy owners – and none with deeper pockets than the Saudi Public Investment Fund – from buying players and success in the same way as those two English clubs, as well as Paris St-Germain, under the ownership of Qatar has managed to do this before.
It is a way to level the financial playing field and prevent countries and individuals from dominating European club football by channeling huge sums of money to their football clubs, giving them an unfair advantage.
In that respect, PIF cannot transform Newcastle at the same speed as others have done in the past, but that does not mean their target is any less ambitious. They plan to continue finding ways, through sponsorship and commercial partnerships, to inject money into Newcastle.
It will just happen more gradually. Newcastle’s progress in this area has slowed, but cannot be stopped completely.
Newcastle’s owners will have to continually prove that any deal – as they did with their shirt sponsor Sela – represents fair market value to convince the Premier League they are not artificially inflating the figures, but there is still huge scope for more deals . And everyone will increase Newcastle’s financial strength until the gap between themselves and the so-called Big Six narrows.
From next season, Newcastle’s new kit deal with Adidas will bring in around £40m a year, a huge increase on the £8m a year they got from Castore. It’s a sign of things to come.
Manchester City are not the richest club in the world because they are the biggest, most popular or most attractive in the world to sponsors. They are the richest club in the world because of the many partnerships they have made over many years with companies linked to their owners in Abu Dhabi. They have cleverly maneuvered their way through the profit and sustainability rules. Newcastle will eventually do the same.
It will take some time, but over the next five to ten years, Newcastle will become one of the richest clubs in Europe and that will inevitably significantly increase their chances of winning silverware.
In the short term, Newcastle won’t get too much rest on the injury front, but the news that both Barnes, their £45m summer signing from Leicester City, who hasn’t played since September, and Willock, who has only played six times has played, This season, which returns in early February, will be a huge boost for Howe.
Barnes was signed to add more goals and assists than Allan Saint Maximin, who was sold to Saudi club Al-Ahli in the summer but has barely kicked a ball. His absence has forced Newcastle to flog wingers Anthony Gordon and Miguel Almiron, ultimately reducing their effectiveness in matches as fatigue caught up with them in December.
Howe normally expects his wide players to empty the tank for 60 minutes and then make a substitution, but he has consistently failed to do so since the autumn with Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy also out with injuries. Barnes looked like a smart signing in the summer, but Newcastle have barely seen him since due to a foot injury
As for Willock, he is hugely underrated and his ability to run at lightning speed with the ball at his feet is sorely missed. The former Arsenal man is also capable of adding much-needed goals from midfield and has a completely different skill set to the players Howe had at his disposal for most of the campaign.
With centre-back Sven Botman now match fit again, along with midfielders Sean Longstaff and Joelinton, Newcastle should be in much better form in February and March.
A relief from the fixture load
Newcastle always knew that a return to Europe would be a challenge for them domestically and therefore expected a drop of around five to six in their league position. Newcastle finished fourth last year and will be in ninth place at the start of 2024. This is one reason why Howe is not under the kind of pressure some have tried to suggest in recent days.
No one at the club wanted to be eliminated from Europe and their Carabao Cup defeat to Chelsea when they took the lead in the 92nd minute of their quarter-final was a bitter pill to swallow.
Had Kieran Trippier not given Chelsea an undeserved equalizer, Howe’s side would have been preparing to face Championship club Middlesbrough in a two-match semi-final next week and would have been heavy favorites to reach a second successive League Cup final reaches.
However, the pain of that defeat is somewhat eased by the fact that Newcastle now play just four games in 30 days, compared to the 10 they faced in the same period in December. For the rest of the season it will be the same schedule, without European football.
For the first time since August, Newcastle’s players will have time to recover after matches and Howe will get some much-needed time on the training pitch to prepare for opponents and resolve any issues in their performance. Newcastle have hardly trained this season and most sessions have been carried out at walking pace to protect the players from further injuries.
In theory, this should all mean that Newcastle can once again play the intense and energetic football that was their trademark last season when they finished fourth. Conditions for Newcastle will be similar to last season when they consistently blew away opponents at home and it should also make them more effective on their travels.