Newcastle United get off to a mediocre start under their new ownership after more than a decade under the stewardship of Mike Ashley the club is now looking to move on.
In a weekend where Leicester put four goals past Man United and Edouard Mendy put in a world class performance for Chelsea, all eyes were pointed towards Newcastle to see how the side would perform under the watchful eye of their new Saudi owners.
St James’ Park was the place to be yesterday; the stadium and fans were bouncing which was only heightened by Callum Wilson’s opener in the second minute. The atmosphere was almost as memorable as the euphoric reaction from the home team’s new owners – who were seen jumping round their seats.
Like all things, what goes up must come down and this was no different for Newcastle fans as their mood plummeted thanks to a Tanguy Ndombele equaliser just fifteen minutes later. The defending was calamitous as the French midfielder had acres of space when he picked the ball up on the edge of the Newcastle box and fired into the top right-hand corner.
Harry Kane managed to finally get off the mark in the Premier League thanks to a lofted through ball from Pierre-Emile Hojberg; poor communication and lazy defending meant the Englishman found himself lifting the ball over Karl Darlow in the twenty-second minute.
Towards the end of the first half Sergio Reguilon alerted the referee to a Newcastle fan being given CPR in the east stand. Play was immediately stopped, and Eric Dier sprinted the width of the pitch to make sure the Newcastle medical team had a defibrillator. The game eventually restarted as news broke that the person affected was in a stable condition and had been taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Steve Bruce’s side were cut apart for the last time in the final stages of the first half as Lucas Moura rounded Isaac Hayden and played Kane through on goal for him to send a low cross straight to Heung-min Son, who fired it into the back of the net with a first time shot.
In what would turn out to be a peculiar ten-minute spell, substitute Jonjo Shelvey received a second yellow card for pointlessly hacking Reguilon to the floor in the eighty-third minute. Just six minutes later, Eric Dier deflected a cross into the back of his own net to give Newcastle hope in the dying minutes of the game. Despite Dier opening the door for the Geordies to rescue a point, they failed to do so and Steve Bruce’s one-thousandth game in management ended in defeat as chants for him to be sacked echoed round the stands.
Before Mike Ashley bought Newcastle, they were a side that was in-and-out of both the UEFA Cup and the Champions League but ever since May 2007, when he took over, the club has been on a downwards trajectory. The biggest question that Ashley’s reign has raised is how has one man caused such a dramatic decline?
The writing was on the wall for Newcastle as soon as Mike Ashley purchased Newcastle because he failed to realise the club was in £100 million worth of debt; he bought The Magpies for £134 million from Freddy Shepherd and Sir John Hall. Despite this, Geordie fans welcomed him with open arms as he was often seen drinking with fans at away games and watched his side play Sunderland in the away end after he was refused entry to the corporate box at The Stadium of Light due to him wearing a Newcastle shirt.
In 2008, Ashley’s popularity rose to an all-time high when he re-appointed Kevin Keegan as manager – replacing Sam Allardyce. However, his second spell at Newcastle only lasted nine months after he failed to get on board with the club’s new philosophy of bringing in young players and selling them at a profit.
Joe Kinnear was appointed as interim manager, however, he was forced to step down with eight games to go due to heart problems. The business tycoon appointed club legend Alan Shearer in a bid to rescue the struggling side; the Premier League’s top scorer was unable to save them from relegation after accumulating just five points. Consequently, Ashley sacked Shearer and to further rub salt into the wounds, the stadium bar that was named after Shearer was renamed.
The final nail in the coffin for Ashley was in 2009 when he renamed the club’s stadium to “sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park”. Fans were outraged by this and two years later he renamed it once again to “The Sports Direct Arena”. Ashley eventually changed his mind and changed the name of the stadium back to St James’ Park; however, he left the ground plastered in Sports Direct advertisements.
Arguably the best thing to happen to the club under the reign of Mike Ashley was the appointment of Rafa Benitez. The Spaniard managed to inspire the fans and improve the atmosphere around the club – in the season that Benitez took over, the club finished eighteenth, yet the fans still serenaded the Champions League winning manager despite their relegation. Benitez got Newcastle promoted back to the Premier League at the first time of asking and then enjoyed two more seasons which saw them finish tenth and thirteenth. However, Benitez refused to sign a new contract due to his fractured relationship with Ashley – which was caused by his reluctancy to invest.
Mike Ashley’s appointment of Steve Bruce as Benitez’s replacement was met with resounding backlash. The Newcastle job was never going to be easy for Bruce – the English manager has previously managed Sunderland and was quoted saying: “Managing Newcastle has never been my dream”. The Magpies have been struggling for a while and Bruce has seemingly lost the dressing room. Graeme Jones joined Newcastle from Bournemouth to work as an assistant manager under Bruce; once he arrived there was a clear improvement from them and this has caused some quite damning things to be said from players.
Callum Wilson, the club’s main striker, told The Athletic: “I think Graeme Jones coming in as a coach (in January), definitely complemented the manager because he’s a little bit more tactically aware and up to date.
"When you see the results towards the back end of the season and the way we were in games, we had more of a style and philosophy.
"That will happen from the start of the season with a good coach around to help”.
Wilson’s scathing review is shocking to hear as it highlights the lack of respect that the manager has around the club. With the announcement that Amanda Staveley and PIF have bought the club it seems like Bruce’s tenure could be accelerating towards an end.
Newcastle finds themselves in an extremely unique position: they are now the richest club in world football but if drastic changes don’t happen, they could find themselves relegated to the Championship. This raises two questions: who are the new owners, and what needs to be done?
The ownership of Newcastle United is now split three ways; Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi own 10% of the club through their company PCP Capital Partners. The Reuben brothers – billionaire siblings David and Simon – own another 10% whilst Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) own 80% of the Tyneside club.
The PIF reportedly have a net worth of £320 billion – 14 times more than Manchester City’s Sheikh Mansour who is worth £23.3 billion. If you were to add up the combined wealth of the nine richest football club owners you would reach a figure of £91.65 billion, which is 3.5 times smaller than the PIF.
This takeover has caused some amusing transfer rumours to surface. At the moment, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe are 20/1 to sign for Newcastle before February 3 2022, whilst Erling Haaland is 33/1 (as per Odds Bible). Whilst these rumours are amusing, it is not the transfer strategy that Staveley – the club’s new director – will adopt.
The first move the club is expected to make is replacing Steve Bruce; Newcastle have spiralled down the table and are currently sat in a relegation place. The squad lacks quality and a style of play. The new owners are aiming high with Brendan Rodgers already being linked with a switch to Tyneside however the Leicester manager has already dismissed this.
This takeover has already given so much to Newcastle fans: hope, belief and most importantly, the feeling that they have got their club back. The road is long for this club; they won’t spend £1 billion on superstars in January. The foundations will be built and like a phoenix Newcastle will rise again.