Some serious challenges for Newcastle United at the moment.
Everyone has different ideas about the solution(s).
Newcastle United are doing very well in the Champions League with three wins in four games, as well as a place in the quarter-finals of the League Cup for the fourth year in a row, beating Fulham at St James’ Park and it will be a third Carabao Cup semi-final for the third time in four years.
In the Premier League, however, it was a struggle.
Just three league wins in eleven games so far, all three at home to a trio of clubs who are among the six below Newcastle United in the Premier League as we now enter the November 2025 international break.
So what has caused these current Premier League problems for Newcastle United?
I think the seeds were first sown quite some time ago.
They went public about seventeen months ago, but actually go back much further than that.
In June 2024 we found out through some of the more reliable journalists that Newcastle United had a PSR deficit of over £50m in that year’s accounts, which needed to be corrected by the end of the financial year on 30 June 2024.
Newcastle United would breach the three-year PSR limits unless £50m+ of pure PSR profits could be generated in the days of June 2024 that remained.
This wasn’t the sale of one or more players for £50m+, it was £50m+ profit compared to the book value of the players, taking into account depreciation etc.
It was reported that Newcastle United would have to look at all options, including selling one of the club’s top stars, possibly leaving Alexander Isak (apparently interested in Chelsea) or Anthony Gordon (interested in Liverpool). If one of these could be sold for almost £100m, that would mean a PSR profit of £50m+, compared to the then current book value of both players.
As we all know well by now, homegrown players are the ‘best’ to sell when it comes to PSR because no transfer fee has been paid for them and the transfer fee received is pretty much just profit when it comes to PSR. So instead of an Isak or Gordon leaving, 21-year-old lifelong Newcastle United fan Elliot Anderson was sold to Forest for a reported £35 million, as was 19-year-old Yankuba Minteh (who had cost just £7 million a year earlier) for a reported £33 million to Brighton.
That solved the immediate PSR crisis, but what impact could this have on the future?
Well, I think we’re already finding out.
Yankuba Minteh was a good player every time Newcastle played Brighton and indeed he scored in two of the three games. In an alternate universe, Minteh could have settled in well at NUFC in the 2024/2025 season, making appearances and side appearances, and then been first-choice on the right for Eddie Howe’s side this season, rather than at Brighton.
As for England regular Elliot Anderson…
With Joelinton struggling to make it game after game, the thought of Anderson in a midfield trio with Bruno and Tonali would have been more than interesting now. Furthermore, Anderson was versatile enough to potentially play in a team with all three of these NUFC midfielders. Instead, he has been arguably Forest’s best player since leaving Newcastle, as well as picking up Man of the Match awards for England.
I’ve always found it strange that the media didn’t pay more attention to how Newcastle United managed to get themselves into such a mess when June 2024 arrived.
What a mess it was, desperately looking for clubs willing to sign two of our very best young players AND then having to overpay over £20m for a goalkeeper (Vlachodimos) that Eddie Howe would never play, so that Forest would be willing to sign Anderson while avoiding their own PSR problems.
So who at Newcastle United had allowed this embarrassing situation to arise that would lead to the sale of two of NUFC’s future stars?
During the time this serious PSR problem was developing, Darren Eales was CEO throughout, while Amanda Staveley and her husband were on a management contract to run the club on a day-to-day/week-to-week basis on behalf of the owners of the PIF and Reuben family clubs.
I suspect that if we haven’t heard by now, we will never find out who exactly was responsible for the late battle with the PSR and the eventual sale of Minteh and Anderson.
Summer 2025
Fast forward to last summer.
As Newcastle United’s stellar 2024/25 season drew to a close, with a trophy won and a second Champions League in three years, thoughts turned to NUFC competing on four fronts the following season.
Eddie Howe surprised everyone when he came out very publicly and said (demanded…?) that it was absolutely vital that Newcastle United did everything they could to land key transfer targets as quickly as possible.
With the demands of the Champions League on top of domestic cups and an attempt to achieve a third CL qualification in four years, to keep the club moving forward, on and off the pitch, Eddie Howe wanted the much-needed quality signings made as quickly as possible, to have a good pre-season with their new NUFC teammates and enable United to hit the ground running when the season got underway on 16 August 2025.
With the Club World Cup nonsense, this meant that the summer 2025 transfer window opened on June 1.
Ultimately, Newcastle United made six senior signings last summer.
On July 11, Anthony Elanga arrived from Forest.
On August 2, Aaron Ramsdale was loaned from Southampton.
On August 12, Malick Thiaw signed from AC Milan.
On 17 August, Aaron Ramsey arrived at St James’ Park from Villa.
On August 30, Nick Woltemade signed from Stuttgart.
Yoane Wissa will join from Brentford on September 1.
Eddie Howe’s pleas fall on deaf ears.
Well, if only there were ears to hear him.
By all accounts, it looked like Newcastle United had been operating without a sporting director and effectively without a CEO all summer. Club director and minority owner Jamie Reuben is said to have been involved in an attempt to help broker one or more transfers.
(Of course, on the transfer window front, we also saw Eddie Howe having to deal with all the problems caused by Alexander Isak, the absence of a CEO and sporting director, meaning even more pressure was put on the NUFC head coach to deal with this.)
The net result was that in addition to losing Isak, ultimately, of the five permanent signings, four of them signed so late that they had no pre-season at Newcastle United whatsoever. Anthony Elanga, the only one who signed in time for proper preparation, did not arrive in time to be involved in the first friendly against Carlisle, but the winger was available for the remaining six friendlies. Loan officer Aaron Ramsdale signed in early August and played in the only friendly match, against Espanyol.
Now I know that we should not take any individual result in the preseason too seriously. However, with the only friendly win coming against non-league Carlisle, followed by four defeats and two draws in the other six, it didn’t exactly paint a positive picture ahead of the big kick-off at Aston Villa on August 16.
In the event, Anthony Elanga was the only new signing to play in that opening game of the season, joining Ramsdale on loan. Thiaw was also an unused substitute, but was clearly only on the bench as part of his integration into the squad, having only arrived a few days earlier. The remaining three of the five permanent signings have yet to arrive.
We first saw Ramsey and Thiaw as late substitutes in the match against Liverpool.
Ramsey then made his first start against Leeds and was immediately hacked.
While Thiaw made his first start for Newcastle against Bournemouth on 21 September.
Woltemade’s first match in which he was available came on 13 September and he immediately came into the team and scored the winner. That should also have been the first match in which Wissa was available, but started international duty after signing for NUFC and was still unavailable.
Particularly as someone who always likes to give new signings sufficient time to integrate and adapt to a new environment, Eddie Howe is clearly not helped by the fact that only one signing came in before August and had a good pre-season.
Now that 11 Premier League games have been played, if all the new signings had been available to start the season, that would have collectively meant a maximum of 66 PL starts so far. The reality was only 20 between the six, with Woltemade (8) relying heavily (overly?) and starting all eight league matches after signing and receiving international clearance to play, then you have Thiaw (8) and Elanga (4), with Ramsey only making the only Premier League start and both Wissa and Ramsdale yet to make one.
The fact that Elanga was an experienced Premier League player and signed on time, but has only started four of the eleven Premier League matches, is obviously not a huge positive.
However, in this article I wanted to focus on these long-standing factors that would always influence this 2025/26 season, especially in its early stages. So the situation that saw Minteh and Anderson sold in June 2024 when they should have been big players for Newcastle by now, plus how this summer’s transfer window has led to so many extra complications, but otherwise half cancels for now.
This article is long enough and I will follow up with another article shortly where I will look at all the other different areas and issues, giving my views on the quality of the signings made, the injuries and suspensions that have had an impact, the tactics and formations used, the busy fixture list, with of course a special focus on Eddie Howe himself and how successfully (or not) he has dealt with the cards he has been dealt. Plus how I personally see the season going as we move forward.
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