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The new ownership is set to add age and experience to their newly acquired investment when Newcastle’s Saudi PIF takeover is completed in late 2021.
By the end of their first January transfer window Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood and Dan Byrne, all in their late 20s and early 30s with over 1,200 professional appearances between them, had done just that.
Young, high-quality players in Bruno Guimaraes from Lyon, Real Sociedad’s Alexandre Issac and Italy midfielder Sandro Tonali have been followed by Everton winger Anthony Gordon over the next 18 months as Newcastle’s philosophy begins to cement a mix of quality, experience and the potential to gatecrash the Premier big boys.
But while the Toon Army saw off two Champions League campaigns and went on to win their first silverware in a generation, an elusive title race never materialised.
Instead, after a nightmare summer in 2025, Eddie Howe’s side were forced to swallow the pill to finish five points behind newly-promoted arch-rivals Sunderland last season – and closer to the relegation zone than a Champions League qualifying spot.
The head coach insisted this transfer window was different, and it certainly has been. Under a new recruitment team led by Ross Wilson, Newcastle are among the busiest players in the month ahead of the start of the season and have already completed three signings, with Monaco’s Aladzi Bamba a fourth.
That’s not the only way things have changed. The incoming quartet have played just 261 professional games between them and Lewis Miley, representing the four youngest senior players in Howe’s squad for this season.
This is a deliberate change.
With PSR constraints and the lure of Premier League rivals looking for inspiration on how the hierarchy at St James’ Park can best exploit the club’s situation, they have found a source of inspiration in Borussia Dortmund, following the work of German teams Jude Bellingham, Jadon Haddon Sancho and Erland in recent years.
“Newcastle have always wanted to bring in young players, moving away from the January transfer window shortly after the takeover when they were bringing in the likes of Dan Byrne, Chris Wood and Kieran Trippier,” Sky Sports News’ North East reporter Keith Downey said Sky Sports Newcastle United Summer Special Podcast.
“But the model has changed a bit in that they are now looking at 18- to 24-year-old players, if they can. And you look at the three players they’ve already signed, they fall into that bracket. And between £20 million and £40 million, that’s the kind of bracket they’re working on.
“They are trying to bring in young players with a high ceiling so they can improve on sales by a profit or two, stay with the club for a long time and continue to excel on the pitch.
“I asked a source at the club if they were trying to be like Brighton or Brentford. And they said, no, it’s like Borussia Dortmund.
“It’s not a bad achievement. The chief executive spoke in March and said they want to be one of the best clubs in Europe by 2030. That’s just four years away. They need to get this ball rolling quickly.”
‘Players have developed faster than PIF’s ambitions’
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Keith Downey has spoken of Newcastle’s ‘mistakes’ in the summer window of the 2025/26 season and how they aim to rebuild financially with a view to signings in 2026/27.
The lack of top-level minutes for Newcastle’s summer signings became more noticeable as players left St James’ Park at the same time. Gordon had racked up almost 200 Premier League games by the time of his departure, and Tonali has been across the English top flight and Serie A alike.
Should 29-year-old Guimaraes follow, that would leave a chasm of experience in the club’s midfield.
Meanwhile, the failure to land the likes of Joao Pedro, Hugo Ekiti and Benjamin Cesko last summer and Johan Manzambi at Aston Villa this year has raised questions about Newcastle’s ability to attract and keep those big names – stalled after the PIF’s ambitious early years of ownership.
“People are starting to accept that the influx of players, Isak, Tonali, even Guimaraes, are seeing Newcastle as a stepping stone for them,” Downey explained. “I think when they arrived, they probably saw it as a possible end point for them.
“And they were promised that Newcastle were going to fight. But as the year ticked on, four-and-a-half years, almost five years of possession, Newcastle weren’t fighting for a title.
“They’ve just won a trophy, as great as it was. They’re not hitting that head high. So all of a sudden guys like Gordon, Tonali and Issac are thinking, ‘I’m here for three or four years, I want to go and win trophies and I want to be in Europe. I want to be in the Champions League every year’.
“The project hasn’t progressed as fast as the development of the players. And how well it has, a lot has to do with their coaching staff as well as how well they’ve been coached and developed.
“Manzambi agreed to come to Newcastle. He agreed on personal terms and was keen to move. He just liked Aston Villa. From what I was told, it was because Aston Villa is a Champions League club next season, and Newcastle are not.
“Obviously, Newcastle were a Champions League club last summer, and they were missing players. But they were missing out on Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United, the more established, big-name clubs on the continent.”
