Newcastle United sporting director Paul Mitchell
Newcastle United sporting director Paul Mitchell
"My job is to get us to our ambition in five years' time." Those were the words of Paul Mitchell inside a suite at St James' Park back in September. Few could have predicted that the sporting director would leave Newcastle United by mutual consent just a few months later.
It caps a year of boardroom upheaval following predecessor Dan Ashworth's messy resignation, the departures of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi and CEO Darren Eales' impending exit. With close ally Eales leaving 'soon', due to health reasons, Mitchell felt it was the 'right time' to go - even though the window is about to open.
This had never been the plan when Mitchell took up the position last summer, of course. After all, it had been Mitchell's goal to put Newcastle on the global map where 'our name is on the tip of everyone's tongue'.
Newcastle may have subsequently qualified for the Champions League - despite boss Eddie Howe not having the benefit of a major signing for close to two years - but such a vision takes a lot longer than a solitary season to see through.
Mitchell will be well-aware that Howe has never been in such a commanding position at Newcastle, after also leading the Magpies to their first major domestic trophy in 70 years, but it is worth stressing that the pair developed a working relationship following previous tensions. In fact, it was rather telling that Mitchell namechecked Howe and thanked the Newcastle boss for his 'support' in the opening line of his remarks on Tuesday.
Newcastle United sporting director Paul Mitchell (left) and head coach Eddie Howe
It felt a far cry from last summer when Howe warned there was 'absolutely no point in me saying I’m happy staying at Newcastle if the dynamic isn’t right'. That was a summer where Mitchell ultimately supported rather than drove the club's transfer strategy after arriving three weeks into the window. That was a summer where Newcastle failed to strengthen their starting line-up.
However, Mitchell's influence has still been felt in other ways, whether it was the appointment of highly-regarded performance director James Bunce; the mid-season departures of Lloyd Kelly and Miguel Almiron following Newcastle's historic struggles with sales; or in how the club have widened their radius in the search for undervalued talent like Vakhtang Salia.
It is also worth remembering that Mitchell still has another month at the club and the sporting director is not the type of character who will idly count the hours until his notice is up on June 30. As friend Aaron Wilbraham made clear to ChronicleLive earlier this month: "Anything he's ever done, he's done it 110%. There's no one I've met in football who is harder working."
It is one of the reasons why Newcastle stressed that Mitchell will leave with their 'best wishes' and the sporting director has insisted the club are in 'great hands on and off the pitch and in a fantastic position to keep building', which will reassure supporters. After all, the club's summer plans are already in place - the scouting reports have been compiled, talks have been held with agents and character checks have been carried out - and the fate of Newcastle's window does not rest on one person.
There is an alignment behind the scenes on 'getting the players that Eddie wants' and it is worth pointing out that Mitchell has not worked in isolation at Newcastle - the sporting director has been part of a recruitment team. Those figures will remain in place even after the 43-year-old's departure.
Take Steve Nickson, the club's head of recruitment, who Howe previously said was 'very important to me and the coaching team'. Not least in that manic first window in January, 2022 when Nickson identified targets and 'made sure that it was a real success' to the point where he physically flew out Belo Horizonte with club doctor Paul Catterson to finalise the Bruno Guimaraes deal.
Steve Nickson flew to Brazil to finalise Bruno Guimaraes' move to Newcastle United
Nickson holds a MSc in sports directorship and has vast experience in negotiations as well as identifying talent. This is a figure who is a 'different animal' when it comes to his work in the words of former colleague Eric Kinder.
"When I try to ring him these days, he's never in the country," Kinder previously told ChronicleLive. "He's always somewhere. His private life must take a hell of a battering, but he wanted to be successful, he wanted to work in professional football, he wanted to get as high as he could."
Nickson's assistant is Andy Howe, who the Newcastle boss previously revealed was 'absolutely prominent' in the recruitment of key players like Bruno Guimaraes, Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon and Tino Livramento. Hence why Mitchell stressed Newcastle were in 'great hands'.
However, going forward, a club of this size will still need a sporting director or a technical director. Not only someone to set the medium to long-term strategy, but a figure who stays long enough to actually see that vision through.