A week of licking wounds and sullen resentment at the events of a double derby defeat and a pasting at the Nou Camp has set the mood of the last week. Those asking questions aren't getting answers.
You’d be hard pressed to find a Mag over the last week with much positive to say about the goings on at Newcastle United FC. I don’t think it was the derby defeat per se which has shifted the dial on how we view the club - more the realisation this current iteration of United has failed every test it has faced on the park this season and the big ticket items we talk endlessly about are stuck, no movement on any of them, unexplainable and in a fog. The home derby defeat has crystallised it all though.
I shouldn’t need to list the failures of the club on the park this season but for therapeutic purposes I’ll repeat some - a completely fucked up summer 2025 transfer window which witnessed the departure of Isak to Liverpool and failing at every turn in attempting to strengthen the first team and squad. Thiaw aside the arrivals of last summer have disappointed to put it mildly. I know some of you will point to Ramsey but I’m not convinced he’s particularly VFM given he cost roughly the same as Bruno Guimares who has been so far ahead of the lad from Villa to defy comparison. Ramsdale isn’t as good a goalie as Dubravka in my opinion and enough has been said about Woltermade, Elanga and Wissa so I’ll not add to that.
Man City have been our nemesis in cup competitions and we’ve got nowhere near to pulling off a big win away from home - I’m not counting Chelsea or Spurs because their managers have been jokes - which is something I’ll come back to.
Increasingly, Eddie Howe has become a lightening rod for discontent. I’ll repeat the view this season has been a collective failure from PIF in Riyadh, the absent figures of Chairman Yasir-al-Rumayyan and the Reubens represented by notional director, Jamie - barely spotted at matches now -suggesting a lack of interest. I’m not the only one to constantly repeat - no CEO for twelve months going into last year’s summer window and a Sporting Director hitting the exits just as the window is about to open and leaving an Alexander Isak shaped turd in the middle of the carpet.
So what did the last week bring?
Well, nothing much really. We had something of a “leaked” (ahem) non-story about CEO David Hopkinson giving the staff a pep talk in a video call after the lads caved in yet again at SJP to hand another mediocre visiting team three points. Quite how geeing up the groundstaff, box office people et al helps is lost on me mind but its as well he didn’t try it with Mags of my acquaintance. I’m not sure a clean-cut Canadian would have the necessary mental resilience to process the expansive profanity of Tyneside’s finest curmodgeons.
[True Faith - Independent NUFC Fanzine
Review - THE DEFIANT - A History of Football Against Fascism - Chris Lee
I know there are people who might have stumbled across this and are of the view football and politics don’t mix. I don’t particularly dismiss that thought but as I write this I’ve just watched Donald Trump having to be just about surgically removed from Chelsea’s trophy podium as they lift the Club World Cup in the USA, a competition largely bankrolled …
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6 days ago · 10 likes · 4 comments · True Faith](https://tf1892.substack.com/p/review-the-defiant-a-history-of-football?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web)
Maybe he and Howe should note that supporters had clocked Tonali missing for the derby but on the plane to Bergamo to play the full 90 minutes for Italy in their win over Northern Ireland where Sandro notched one and assisted on the other. That has instigated a mass narrowing of eyes in collective cynicism.
Then there was the story via NUST about how the club, away from playing matters, intends to behave. Its easy to be cynical but when there’s a document stating the club intends to conduct itself against standards of excellance and integrity I have to wonder if Hopkinson found those two qualities absent in his early review of the club’s operations. For someone like me who is often the recipient of various accounts of the club’s poor behaviour towards supporters, reading this stuff does raise a weak smile.
I’ll wish him well with that. I know some of this corporate stuff leaves a lot of people cold but I don’t think its a bad thing for employees of any public facing organisation to be told to raise their game in terms of what they’re doing and how they do it. Without naming names there was some good news last week about someone leaving the club who will not be missed. Others could follow I hope.
Anyway … back to Eddie Howe.
I’m not an Eddie Howe fan-boy. Or Howe loyalist or any other description used by those ranting performatively on social media to pigeon-hole people in these tedious back and forths. I’m a Newcastle United supporter and the club comes first and will always do so above any individual.
That’s not to say I don’t respect Howe or place his achievements at United as high as any I have experienced in the fifty odd years I’ve been following the club. He has done as much if not more than Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson who are rightly lionised in the club’s story. I admire how he conducts himself, his polished demeanour and his quiet, undemonstrative professionalism. But I’m not loyal to him personally. I’m loyal to him in terms of what he can do for Newcastle United and like any player, how we would replace him with better.
My point to those screaming for Howe’s head is - who can Newcastle United appoint who would be better than the current Head Coach?
Right, there’s a detail to this which might be overlooked. That detail is “who Newcastle United can appoint” - not that there aren’t better coaches on the continent than Howe - there may well be - but whether they are available and could be tempted to Newcastle United is a completely different matter. The second point of course is “who can do better in the current environment around the club” - the real one as opposed to an imaginary one.
Let’s look at some other clubs in the Premier League right now … for comedy value I’ll start with Tottenham … a club that has gone through Mourinho, Conte, Postecoglu, Frank, Tudor amongst others and now De Zerbi it seems. Spurs are financially a far stronger club than Newcastle United and thus a more attractive proposition. It’s always all about the money. Then there’s Manchester United who have been laughable in their revolving door of managers and comparable to Everton who have had to return to David Moyes to establish some degree of stability and hand-over their basketcase status to Spurs. Champions Liverpool have largely tanked this season despite spending the budget of a small country on footballers in the summer gone with big questions for Arnie Slot. Who’d be surprised if the Dutchman was binned off?
Do we need to talk about Chelsea and Linkedin Liam currently at the start of a slide to the door marked large compensation pay-off. It goes on … Wolves, West Ham, Forest et al.
Does that mean Howe is bomb-proof? Of course not but despite everything seeming to go backwards this season we should proceed with caution about losing a man who has over-achieved every year he’s been here and frankly carried the club on his own over large periods of the last two years. Despite the mood of dissatisfaction in the aftermath of the hiding we got in Catalonia and the derby defeat, Howe might still achieve this season - against the resources he has available.
But let’s carry on with the scenario that he is to be replaced … what elite manager / coach would decide to come to this iteration of Newcastle United? We need no reminding the club is emasculated by the iniquities of PSR / SCR and APTs so immediately the new lad is on a fraction of the transfer budget available at the clubs we want to compete with - and will likely continue to be whilst the club’s revenue appears stuck in quicksand. That’s before we consider the wages we could offer this elite manager relative to what is available elsewhere … which reminds me of the reason Isak left … for money we couldn’t pay but Liverpool could.
Wind back your thoughts to the period following the takeover in October 2021 and the first three transfer windows thereafter which brought talent into the club when we all felt the glow of possibility under the new ownership.
What were the new players and new Head Coach told about the big plans for the club? New training ground? New stadium / SJP expansion?
Well, all of that is a far harder sell now than then, given none of it has happened and the signature tune of coming up to five years, has been how all ambition is strangled by PSR and will be by SCR. Add to that mix the Saudis unwilling to challenge the status quo through the courts as per Man City. Or cheat like Chelsea. Is Newcastle United worth the aggravation?
We’ve also had regular rumours about the Saudis wanting to sell the club - a plausible story given its far too much trouble getting us to where they want a PL club to be - most of us agree a cartel of clubs have rigged the competition to their ends with the connivance of broadcasters. How do PIF view what is a fixed set up?
Now we have several media outlets reporting hardening interest in our best players … Tonali, Livramento, Gordon, Hall, Guimares from wealthier clubs.
All of that is set against absolutely nothing happening with the training ground (the land isn’t even bought yet), the new stadium or SJP expansion (for which a decision is said not to have been made - rinse and repeat for the last two years minimum), no progress on any multi-club model, city-regional investment or step change with commercial deals despite a game of musical chairs within the executive team.
It seems a long time since Yasir was in Alnwick at the United away-day telling assembled execs the ambition is to be number one … a stretch then let’s be honest but not as risible as it seems now when Hopkinson tells us we’ll be competing with the elite for the top prizes by 2030.
Those claims aren’t generating excitement … they are soliciting open-mouthed disbelief.
Keep On, Keepin’ On …
Michael Martin @TFMick1892.bsky.social