There is plenty of work left to do on the pitch in Newcastle’s 2024/25 Premier League season, but the club’s recruitment team will already be stepping up their transfer plans in what promises to be a busy summer on Tyneside.
With big ambitions from PIF and some welcome PSR ‘headroom’ finally giving us some freedom to spend, it’ll be a vital window for Paul Mitchell to prove his worth in the transfer market.
It’s believed one of his summer ‘missions’ is to lower the age of our squad and The Telegraph have hinted that at least one big-name signing with Premier League experience could sign. However, our recruitment expert is also being tipped to find a few diamonds in the rough.
Not only is our sporting director identifying ready-made stars able to immediately improve Howe’s XI, an unnamed rival recruitment executive believes the ‘smart money’ is on Paul Mitchell bringing hidden gems to Tyneside this summer.
Dean Huijsen is perhaps a prime example. The hugely impressive 19-year-old may be available at a tempting £50m release clause this summer, but he cost Bournemouth just £12m from Juventus last year in a big win for Bournemouth’s recruitment team.
That is the sort of bargain deal Mitchell will hope to replicate on Tyneside, and rightly so in the world of PSR. This was highlighted in Mark Douglas’ latest piece for the i, which featured this intriguing snippet:
‘One rival recruitment executive that The i Paper spoke to believes the Newcastle director of football would likely favour the foreign market and look for players with room to develop.
“People talk about the likes of Dean Huijsen and Newcastle’s interest there but every director of football wants to get a Huijsen for £12m [his fee last summer] rather than the £50m he is now,” they said.
“The smart money with Paul is that Newcastle look at a few of those type of signings in the summer.”’
Ultimately, the ability to land low-cost, high-potential talent ahead of our rivals is what can really make our director of football stand out in a competitive market.
These two may be slightly further away from being first-team ready, but Mitchell’s push for us to widen our search has already been highlighted.
17-year-old Georgian forward Vakhtang Salia is highly-rated in his homeland and will arrive on his 18th birthday in August before he is loaned out.
It’s also thought Newcastle have all but won the race to sign 18-year-old Spaniard Antonio Cordero; the winger impressing in the Spanish second tier with Malaga.
If we can continue to land exciting talent able to benefit from Eddie Howe’s coaching and mix that in with proven stars and teenage stars for tomorrow, we’ll be in safe hands. Over to you, Paul Mitchell!