Newcastle United may have to go through more short-term pain because they have a tough run of games in January that could push them further away from the European spots.
After the trip to Liverpool on New Year’s Day, the FA Cup match against Sunderland next weekend is the next big game. Not until February will there be a break. First, they play at home against winners Manchester City. Then, they go to Aston Villa to play the team with the best home record in the Premier League.
Eddie Howe’s team isn’t going to get through this without losing, and if they do, more people will start to question his future as manager.
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But Telegraph Sport already said that Howe’s job is one of the best in English football. And after talking to important people behind the scenes at St. James’ Park over the last few days, there is every reason to be positive about the future.
The Saudis will find ways to keep giving the club money.
In his piece for The Telegraph last week, Jamie Carragher said that Newcastle could never win as many trophies as Chelsea and Manchester City, whose owners are very wealthy. In some ways, he was right. Profit and sustainability rules are mostly meant to stop wealthy owners—and no one has deeper pockets than Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund—from buying players and success in the same way that those two English clubs and Paris Saint-Germain, which was owned by Qatar, did in the past.
It levels the playing field when it comes to money and stops countries and individuals from controlling European club football by putting huge amounts of money into their football teams and giving them an unfair edge.
That being said, PIF can’t change Newcastle as quickly as other groups have, but that doesn’t make the goal any less important. It plans to keep looking for ways to bring money into Newcastle through sponsorships and business partnerships.
It’s just going to be done more slowly. Newcastle’s progress in this area has been slowed down, but it can’t be stopped totally.
Newcastle’s owners will always have to show that every deal, like the one they made with Sela, is worth what it’s worth on the market so the Premier League is sure they aren’t lying about the numbers, but there is still a lot of room for more deals to be made. And each one will make Newcastle’s finances stronger until there is almost no difference between them and the so-called “Big Six.”
Newcastle’s new kit deal with Adidas will bring in about £40 million a year, which is a huge increase from the £8 million a year they were getting from Castore. It’s a sign of good things to come.
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Sponsors don’t give Manchester City the most money just because they are the biggest, most popular, or most sought-after team in the world. Over many years, they have made a lot of deals with companies in Abu Dhabi that are connected to their owners. This has made them the richest club in the world. They have cleverly gotten around rules about making money and being environmentally friendly. Newcastle will do the same thing in the end.
Newcastle will become one of the wealthiest teams in Europe in the next five to ten years. It will take some time, but that will definitely make their chances of winning trophies much better.
Harvell Barnes and Joe Willock are back.
The return of Harvey Barnes and Joe Willock
Unfortunately for Newcastle, they won’t have much relief from injuries for a while. However, the news that Barnes, who they signed from Leicester City for £45 million but hasn’t played since September, and Willock, who has only played six times this season, will both be back at the beginning of February is great news for Howe.
Allan Saint-Maximin was sold to the Saudi club Al-Ahli in the summer, but Barnes was brought in to score more goals and set up others. Barnes has hardly played a game, though. Tottenham had to trade for wingers Anthony Gordon and Miguel Almirón while he was out, which made them less successful in games until they got tired in December.
Howe usually waits for his wide players to run out of gas for an hour and then make a change. But since the autumn, he hasn’t been able to do this because Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy have been hurt. Barnes seemed like a smart choice when Newcastle signed him in the summer, but he hasn’t played much since because of a foot problem.
Willock, on the other hand, is way underrated, and it’s been greatly missed how fast he can run with the ball in his hands. The former Arsenal player can also score important goals from middle, and he has a completely different set of skills than the players Howe has had at his disposal for most of the season.
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Newcastle should be in much better shape going into February and March now that centre back Sven Botman, midfielders Sean Longstaff and Joelinton, and forwards Joelinton and Longstaff are all back to full match fitness.
A lessening of the load on the device
Newcastle always knew that going back to Europe would be hard for them in the English Premier League, and they expected to drop five or six spots in the standings as a result. Last year, Newcastle came in fourth, and right now, they are ninth in 2024. For this reason, Howe is not under the kind of stress that some people have been saying he is lately.
It was painful for everyone at the club to lose to Chelsea in the Carabao Cup, especially since they were ahead in the 92nd minute of their quarterfinal.
If Kieran Trippier hadn’t given Chelsea an unfair goal, Howe’s team would have been getting ready to play Middlesbrough in a two-leg semi-final next week. They would have been heavy favourites to make it to their second straight League Cup final.
After that loss, Newcastle will only have to play four games in 30 days, compared to 10 games in the same time period in December. This will help them feel a little better. The rest of the season will have the same kind of games, but no European sport.
For the first time since August, Newcastle’s players will have time to rest after games, and Howe will have much-needed time on the training ground to get his players ready for opponents and fix any problems with their play. Newcastle hasn’t practiced much this season; when they have, it’s been at a walking pace to keep players from getting hurt even more.
In theory, this should allow Newcastle to play the fast-paced, high-energy football that made them famous last season, when they came in fourth place. Newcastle will be in the same kind of conditions as last season, when they routinely blew teams away at home. This should also help them perform better when they travel.