Newcastle United have gone backwards after £250million spent last summer.
Old habits die hard for Newcastle United, who took the lead at Crystal Palace on Sunday only to lose again. See Arsenal, West Ham United, Brentford (twice), Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Liverpool and Sunderland for where 25 points (yes, that’s right) have been thrown away.
Eddie Howe and his Newcastle players are not learning from their mistakes. Their game-management, once lauded for being s----ousery, is shambolic. For a squad that has had around £700million of investment ploughed into it, sitting 14th in the Premier League table with only six matches remaining is simply not good enough.
Finishing there this season, which, on current evidence, is what they’ll deserve, is a season that wouldn’t have looked out of place under Mike Ashley. For an ownership and executive team that have big ambitions, voiced as recently as a couple of weeks ago, there is no other way of dressing this season up.
Last summer is looking more of a disaster by the day. Twelve months earlier, Newcastle reluctantly sold Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh before spending next to nothing in order to fend off the threat of breaching Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
It made Eddie Howe’s achievement even more remarkable. The same manager and group went again, and etched themselves into history by winning the club’s first trophy in 56 years. That day at Wembley will live long in the memory, while Champions League qualification for the second time in three years capped off a special season.
It’s fine to recognise, appreciate and respect what Howe and his squad have done. But by the way, it is also fine to criticise. It doesn’t have to be black or white, it can be grey, and that’s probably how a lot of supporters are feeling right now.
Eddie Howe & Newcastle United got 2025 summer badly wrong
Howe and the club got it badly wrong last summer. They knew above anyone else how Alexander Isak felt but retained the Swede until the final day of the transfer window. Yes, Isak’s actions were inexcusable - he treated his manager and the football club with the utmost disrespect, but Newcastle have been rinsed for bad planning.
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£55million for a 29-year-old Yoane Wissa may go down as one of the worst, if not the worst, deals in the club’s history, while Nick Woltemade, for all the talent he has - and he showed that in the early to mid part of the season - isn’t a typical Howe striker, typified by his decision to play Anthony Gordon, a winger by trade, and Will Osula, who the club were willing to let go last summer, ahead of the German recently.
It makes you question why Woltemade was signed in the first place, as Howe has been unable to evolve his system to accommodate his £64milllion club-record signing. Only another German, Malick Thiaw, has been a definite hit from the six players to arrive last summer.
Jacob Ramsey has steadily become accustomed, so can’t be completely dismissed. There have been flashes from Anthony Elanga but for his brace in Barcelona is two poor Tyne-Wear performances against Sunderland, although he isn’t the only one.
Howe was given the license to spend £250m last summer and has very little to show for it. This is a team that has rapidly gone backwards and under financial rules may have sent the club backwards.
Admittedly, Howe has got more signings right than wrong but ahead of what is being viewed as a potential summer rebuild, Newcastle’s hierarchy needs to decide whether they back Howe to lead it.
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