· 28 May 2025, 12:00
**Yesterday news broke that sporting director Paul Mitchell is to leave Newcastle United at the end of next month, this coming just hours after the Premier League season wrapped up.**
Paul Mitchell arrived at Newcastle last July to replace Dan Ashworth, and his arrival coincided with the departures of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, adding to a turbulent time for the club.
Immediately, rumours began to circulate that Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell didn't see eye-to-eye, and that seemed to take weeks to go away.
Now, 11 months later and without making a major first-team signing, Mitchell is set to leave the club along with Darren Eales, who brought him in, who is stepping down as CEO for health reasons.
Craig Hope was only surprised by the timing of yesterday's announcement
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Last night, Craig Hope was on Sky Sports News' Back Pages Tonight segment, where he was asked his thoughts on the matter (Starts at around 19 minutes on the video above).
Hope said that he was surprised at the timing, but not the fact that Mitchell was leaving, going on to state that all was not well behind the scenes.
> "The writing's been on the wall since Mitchell first came into the club last summer.
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> "There were reports of tension immediately. I think he rubbed up staff and players the wrong way during those introductory meetings. There was hope that some of those tensions would thaw as the season went on, that relationships would improve, but the fact that we've arrived here today with the surprise timing of the news, certainly that Mitchell's going to go without ever having made a significant first team signing tells you that all wasn't well, and if its not, it's time to move on."
We'd like to place on record our sincere thanks to Paul Mitchell for James Bunce
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Hope had made similar claims earlier in the evening on TalkSPORT too, suggesting there was too much friction behind the scenes.
With Darren Eales stepping down, who was likely his greatest ally at the club, Mitchell obviously felt that it was best if he moved on.
We'll thank him for James Bunce, who kept our players relatively fit this season, and we hope that he stays when Mitchell leaves, but beyond that, we're not sure what else he did that was particularly noteworthy, especially as far as the first team goes.