PIF and RB Sports & Media

[BennyBlanco]

An article cobbled together from his own conjecture about the Staveley departure and spliced with quotes from the latest Eales interview that seem totally irrelevant to what he was trying to say. 
 

Typical negative shite from the north easts grubbiest slug of a journo.

[The Prophet]

Whoever said he is a contrarian is spot on. He's usually overly positive or overly negative, depending on the mood of the fanbase and what will illicit the most engagement.

[Nucasol]

3 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

Whoever said he is a contrarian is spot on. He's usually overly positive or overly negative, depending on the mood of the fanbase and what will illicit the most engagement.

He’s a horrible baldy prick who I’ll always remember as goading the fans when we were at a low ebb. Proper wanker.

[Joelinton7]

To sum up, Howe had no clue about Mitchell and so therefore must be fuming, yeah obviously Luke. Howe’s unwavering professionalism straight out of the window despite him repeating many times that he’ll support whatever the club thinks is in its best interests. He's just gonna’ blank Mitchell in the canteen isn’t he? He’s been “hit hard” with AS leaving. Doesn’t sound like Eddie at all Luke but go on. 
 

Arguments, stress and tension and a dark cloud have hung over the summer. Has it? That’s the actual weather Luke. Not NUFC. 

 

See this is why people don’t like him. He takes any ounce of apprehension, uncertainty or dissatisfaction within a section of the fanbase (or his own head) and then slaps out divisive, angst ridden crap with credible evidence stretching no further than “it’s thought” or “understand that”. It’s like he takes all the good things about the club and how it is run and just goes “but what if it wasn’t?” and calls it real journalism. 

[midds]

22 minutes ago, Rich said:

Luke Edwards is a proper slug, dear me.

If Ornstein is seen as the oracle then Edwards has to be the orifice. Surely?  

[huss9]

40 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

 

 

Just as club eased fears over spending rules and loss of key players, manager has become one of favourites for England job

By Luke Edwards, Northern Football Writer16 July 2024 • 6:59pm

When Newcastle United kicked the final ball of last season at Brentford, the players and staff stood in front of their adoring fans on the pitch believing they had secured European football for a second successive year.

Newcastle’s desire to see gradual and sustainable progress under their Saudi Arabian owners remained intact and manager Eddie Howe’s stock – at least for those who understood the damage a crippling injury list had done to the team’s hopes of achieving another top-four finish – remained high.

What followed, starting with Manchester United’s surprise win over Manchester City in the FA Cup final that denied Newcastle their European ticket, has been a shock. There have been arguments, stress and tension behind the scenes, as Newcastle struggled with one problem after another.

A dark cloud has hung over the summer. There has been upheaval in the boardroom, a dangerous flirtation with a profit and sustainability rules (PSR) breach that would have led to a 10-point penalty punishment, transfer speculation surrounding virtually all of their key players and now doubts about Howe’s future at St James’ Park.

 

Howe not consulted over Mitchell move

Howe has always said, publicly, but even more forcefully in private, that he does not want to move into international management at this stage.

Newcastle are adamant they see him as their manager for a long-term project and will resist any attempt by the Football Association to poach him for the national side.

Howe will have a decision to make if the FA call him to replace Gareth Southgate. He wants to be England manager one day and while the timing might not feel right now, will he be worried he won’t get another chance?

That is the great unknown. It is easy to say you don’t want a job that has never been offered to you and until he publicly rules himself out of the running to replace Southgate, there is bound to be uncertainty about the true level of Howe’s commitment to Newcastle.

He has lost his main ally on the board this summer following the departure of Amanda Staveley and that is understood to have hit him hard. He also still needs to work through the parameters of his relationship with new sporting director Paul Mitchell, who has replaced Dan Ashworth. Mitchell’s appointment this month had nothing to do with Howe – he was only told about it the day before it was announced.

There are also concerns about how much money he will have to spend this summer given the club’s well-documented problems with PSR and the enforced sale of a player he really liked in midfielder Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest.

Howe is due to speak to the media later this week from the club’s pre-season training camp in Germany. It will be fascinating to see how he responds to questions about his future and there will be some concern from supporters he could still leave for the challenge of managing the national team.

 

Loss of ally Staveley leaves a void

Staveley had already been pushed to the periphery at St James’ Park. She was the public face of the takeover and helped force it through back in 2021, despite widespread opposition given the controversial nature of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). But she had no prior experience of running a football club and people had been appointed to do the jobs she had initially taken on in the early days of the project.

The most important of those is chief executive Darren Eales, who has brought in a new sporting director he knows well in Mitchell, who in turn has brought in a new head of performance in David Bunce.

There is a dedicated board of directors, of which Staveley was just one, and her influence had been on the wane for some time before her exit was announced last week.

What Newcastle will lack in the wake of her departure is a human touch. She was a people person behind the scenes and brought everyone together. She was also Howe’s champion and fought his battles in the boardroom.

Newcastle will look, feel and sound like a colder, more corporate entity without her as a driving force, as well as a figure fans could relate to. They knew Staveley wanted the best for the club and the city and supporters have less emotional attachment to those left behind to run things.

Questions are starting to be asked about progress stalling under the PIF. Is it as interested as it claimed to be at the start? Or has PSR, combined with new rules to curtail sponsorship deals linked to owners clipped its wings?

Newcastle cannot operate like Chelsea and Manchester City did before them and closing the gap on the richest clubs in England and Europe is so much harder as a result. Saudi chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan said he wanted Newcastle to be the “number one” club in Europe, but it is hard to see how they can do that in the short to medium term given the financial restrictions in place.

Eales said: “As far as the PIF are concerned – and Jamie Reuben on behalf of [co-owners] the Reuben family – they are committed.

“This is an ownership group that has got a big portfolio of companies. In one sense, on a scale of investment, it’s probably one of their smallest, but in terms of profile and their interest, it’s one of their highest.

“We’re excited. I’ve spoken about the end of the cycle with PSR and this is a big year for us now going forward as we go on that journey to become a club competing for trophies and being in Europe every season. That’s got to be our aim going forward.”

Concrete news on the planned expansion of St James’ Park would be a step in the right direction.

There have been concerns over Anthony Gordon following the interest shown in him from boyhood club Liverpool Credit: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images

Fears over big-name exits and PSR breaches

Newcastle were in a panic in the last few days of June, desperately trying to bring in £60 million in profit to prevent a PSR breach and potential hefty points penalty. They were in real trouble, only to escape in the last 48 hours with the sale of Yankuba Minteh to Brighton and Anderson to Nottingham Forest. It led to a huge collective sigh of relief because Howe had feared losing someone like Bruno Guimarães, Alexander Isak or Anthony Gordon instead.

Newcastle have no need to sell any of their crown jewels and can now focus on recruiting players to improve the squad. It hurt to lose players in June but it was the lesser of two evils.

There are concerns about Gordon’s desire to join his boyhood club Liverpool, but Newcastle sources do not believe he will return from England duty agitating to leave and it will be pointed out to him that, for all the talk, Liverpool failed to make a bid for him last month. Bids for Bruno and Isak will be rejected out of hand.

“We did what we needed to do and we are compliant,” said Eales. “Going forward we are into a new cycle and we do not want to be leaving ourselves in that situation again in such tight circumstances.

“We did not want to lose those players but again we had to do the deals to leave the squad in the best place possible for Eddie.

“In that respect, with Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Joelinton and [Sandro] Tonali to come back, we’ve got Lloyd Kelly coming in as an addition already, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento, we’ve got the squad to kick on.

“But we are always looking to add to that and that is the challenge now. That is what we need to do, we need to find ways to improve and that is what we are doing with Eddie and Paul.

“We are having those discussions. Paul Mitchell has come onboard and it is for him and Eddie to discuss what sort of targets they want, the areas they want to strengthen. It’s then important to have those meetings to decide where we are going to allocate those resources to strengthen our squad.”

a load of bollocks and conjecture.

who is the mole on the board leaking stuff about "arguments" and concerns about the transfer budget?

shite article.

 

probabaly more reliable ITK's on this forum than him.

[GideonShandy]

19 minutes ago, midds said:

If Ornstein is seen as the oracle then Edwards has to be the orifice. Surely?  

'e's 'orrible.

[Danh1]

Edwards’ article is absolutely awful.

 

Our fans have this habit of hating journos who put a negative slant on things even if it’s the truth but that is littered with utter bollocks. 

[Joelinton7]

Eddie after “not being consulted over Mitchell”. 

[Stifler]

Could have just stop the quote of the article at the part where it says ‘Written by Luke Edwards’.

[elbee909]

23 minutes ago, Joelinton7 said:

Eddie after “not being consulted over Mitchell”. 

 

"Smile if you already hate each other"

[Chapo]

I wouldn’t have any issue with Howe not being consulted with for the Mitchell appointment. That’s how it should be. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Sad thing is fans are starting to buy into this shite about the club being badly run, making loads of mistakes, not backing Howe etc etc. Latest True Faith podcast is absolutely rife with it. 

 

Guess it makes people sound intelligent if they are constantly critical and passing judgement, but it has little to do with reality. 

[PauloGeordio]

5 hours ago, Joelinton7 said:

To sum up, Howe had no clue about Mitchell and so therefore must be fuming, yeah obviously Luke. Howe’s unwavering professionalism straight out of the window despite him repeating many times that he’ll support whatever the club thinks is in its best interests. He's just gonna’ blank Mitchell in the canteen isn’t he? He’s been “hit hard” with AS leaving. Doesn’t sound like Eddie at all Luke but go on. 
 

Arguments, stress and tension and a dark cloud have hung over the summer. Has it? That’s the actual weather Luke. Not NUFC. 

 

See this is why people don’t like him. He takes any ounce of apprehension, uncertainty or dissatisfaction within a section of the fanbase (or his own head) and then slaps out divisive, angst ridden crap with credible evidence stretching no further than “it’s thought” or “understand that”. It’s like he takes all the good things about the club and how it is run and just goes “but what if it wasn’t?” and calls it real journalism. 

Well put. Drinks too much witch piss too! 🍷Twunt.

[aussiemag]

In what professional environment is a subordinate involved in the recruitment of their boss. There needs to be a clear line between the sporting director and the head coach. Yes, they need to work together on strategy etc. but in this structure the power needs to shift towards the sporting director. Having the manager involved in his recruitment undermines his authority before he even steps into his role. 

 

 

Edited July 17 by aussiemag

[toontownman]

I thought it was reported that it was Howe that pushed for Mitchell to start with then when he turned it down we went for Freedman.. but got him in the end. 

 

At any rate I thought it was widely reported Eddie was into the Mitchell appointment?

 

Surely Luke hasn't made this one up?

[Scoot]

8 hours ago, Whitley mag said:

 

 

Just as club eased fears over spending rules and loss of key players, manager has become one of favourites for England job

By Luke Edwards, Northern Football Writer16 July 2024 • 6:59pm

When Newcastle United kicked the final ball of last season at Brentford, the players and staff stood in front of their adoring fans on the pitch believing they had secured European football for a second successive year.

Newcastle’s desire to see gradual and sustainable progress under their Saudi Arabian owners remained intact and manager Eddie Howe’s stock – at least for those who understood the damage a crippling injury list had done to the team’s hopes of achieving another top-four finish – remained high.

What followed, starting with Manchester United’s surprise win over Manchester City in the FA Cup final that denied Newcastle their European ticket, has been a shock. There have been arguments, stress and tension behind the scenes, as Newcastle struggled with one problem after another.

A dark cloud has hung over the summer. There has been upheaval in the boardroom, a dangerous flirtation with a profit and sustainability rules (PSR) breach that would have led to a 10-point penalty punishment, transfer speculation surrounding virtually all of their key players and now doubts about Howe’s future at St James’ Park.

 

Howe not consulted over Mitchell move

Howe has always said, publicly, but even more forcefully in private, that he does not want to move into international management at this stage.

Newcastle are adamant they see him as their manager for a long-term project and will resist any attempt by the Football Association to poach him for the national side.

Howe will have a decision to make if the FA call him to replace Gareth Southgate. He wants to be England manager one day and while the timing might not feel right now, will he be worried he won’t get another chance?

That is the great unknown. It is easy to say you don’t want a job that has never been offered to you and until he publicly rules himself out of the running to replace Southgate, there is bound to be uncertainty about the true level of Howe’s commitment to Newcastle.

He has lost his main ally on the board this summer following the departure of Amanda Staveley and that is understood to have hit him hard. He also still needs to work through the parameters of his relationship with new sporting director Paul Mitchell, who has replaced Dan Ashworth. Mitchell’s appointment this month had nothing to do with Howe – he was only told about it the day before it was announced.

There are also concerns about how much money he will have to spend this summer given the club’s well-documented problems with PSR and the enforced sale of a player he really liked in midfielder Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest.

Howe is due to speak to the media later this week from the club’s pre-season training camp in Germany. It will be fascinating to see how he responds to questions about his future and there will be some concern from supporters he could still leave for the challenge of managing the national team.

 

Loss of ally Staveley leaves a void

Staveley had already been pushed to the periphery at St James’ Park. She was the public face of the takeover and helped force it through back in 2021, despite widespread opposition given the controversial nature of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). But she had no prior experience of running a football club and people had been appointed to do the jobs she had initially taken on in the early days of the project.

The most important of those is chief executive Darren Eales, who has brought in a new sporting director he knows well in Mitchell, who in turn has brought in a new head of performance in David Bunce.

There is a dedicated board of directors, of which Staveley was just one, and her influence had been on the wane for some time before her exit was announced last week.

What Newcastle will lack in the wake of her departure is a human touch. She was a people person behind the scenes and brought everyone together. She was also Howe’s champion and fought his battles in the boardroom.

Newcastle will look, feel and sound like a colder, more corporate entity without her as a driving force, as well as a figure fans could relate to. They knew Staveley wanted the best for the club and the city and supporters have less emotional attachment to those left behind to run things.

Questions are starting to be asked about progress stalling under the PIF. Is it as interested as it claimed to be at the start? Or has PSR, combined with new rules to curtail sponsorship deals linked to owners clipped its wings?

Newcastle cannot operate like Chelsea and Manchester City did before them and closing the gap on the richest clubs in England and Europe is so much harder as a result. Saudi chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan said he wanted Newcastle to be the “number one” club in Europe, but it is hard to see how they can do that in the short to medium term given the financial restrictions in place.

Eales said: “As far as the PIF are concerned – and Jamie Reuben on behalf of [co-owners] the Reuben family – they are committed.

“This is an ownership group that has got a big portfolio of companies. In one sense, on a scale of investment, it’s probably one of their smallest, but in terms of profile and their interest, it’s one of their highest.

“We’re excited. I’ve spoken about the end of the cycle with PSR and this is a big year for us now going forward as we go on that journey to become a club competing for trophies and being in Europe every season. That’s got to be our aim going forward.”

Concrete news on the planned expansion of St James’ Park would be a step in the right direction.

There have been concerns over Anthony Gordon following the interest shown in him from boyhood club Liverpool Credit: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images

Fears over big-name exits and PSR breaches

Newcastle were in a panic in the last few days of June, desperately trying to bring in £60 million in profit to prevent a PSR breach and potential hefty points penalty. They were in real trouble, only to escape in the last 48 hours with the sale of Yankuba Minteh to Brighton and Anderson to Nottingham Forest. It led to a huge collective sigh of relief because Howe had feared losing someone like Bruno Guimarães, Alexander Isak or Anthony Gordon instead.

Newcastle have no need to sell any of their crown jewels and can now focus on recruiting players to improve the squad. It hurt to lose players in June but it was the lesser of two evils.

There are concerns about Gordon’s desire to join his boyhood club Liverpool, but Newcastle sources do not believe he will return from England duty agitating to leave and it will be pointed out to him that, for all the talk, Liverpool failed to make a bid for him last month. Bids for Bruno and Isak will be rejected out of hand.

“We did what we needed to do and we are compliant,” said Eales. “Going forward we are into a new cycle and we do not want to be leaving ourselves in that situation again in such tight circumstances.

“We did not want to lose those players but again we had to do the deals to leave the squad in the best place possible for Eddie.

“In that respect, with Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Joelinton and [Sandro] Tonali to come back, we’ve got Lloyd Kelly coming in as an addition already, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento, we’ve got the squad to kick on.

“But we are always looking to add to that and that is the challenge now. That is what we need to do, we need to find ways to improve and that is what we are doing with Eddie and Paul.

“We are having those discussions. Paul Mitchell has come onboard and it is for him and Eddie to discuss what sort of targets they want, the areas they want to strengthen. It’s then important to have those meetings to decide where we are going to allocate those resources to strengthen our squad.”

 

What a little rat this cunt is.

 

Not sure how anyone could listen to Eales' comments yesterday and come away from it feeling negative. It seems this compleye aresehole has attempted to put a negative spin on it somehow. 

 

We have some right moron journalists who are associated with us and write about us. 

[80]

59 minutes ago, toontownman said:

I thought it was reported that it was Howe that pushed for Mitchell to start with then when he turned it down we went for Freedman.. but got him in the end. 

 

At any rate I thought it was widely reported Eddie was into the Mitchell appointment?

 

Surely Luke hasn't made this one up?

Yeah that's right. Initially, the claim was Eddie had encouraged them to go back and try again for Mitchell. So someone's talking absolute bollocks.

[et tu brute]

I don't know how anyone pays a second worth of attention with that bald cunt. He's constantly wrong and is the biggest tosser there is. I would have banned him from St James' the way he went on about the takeover and the ownership 

[Toonjam88]

12 minutes ago, et tu brute said:

I don't know how anyone pays a second worth of attention with that bald cunt. He's constantly wrong and is the biggest tosser there is. I would have banned him from St James' the way he went on about the takeover and the ownership 

100% this 👍🏻

he will be annoyed as the only people he still might have got some info from has now now left the club. 
blokes a idiot he blocked me on Twitter for calling him out about they way he went on about the takeover. 

[Ghandis Flip-Flop]

6 hours ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Sad thing is fans are starting to buy into this shite about the club being badly run, making loads of mistakes, not backing Howe etc etc. Latest True Faith podcast is absolutely rife with it. 

 

Guess it makes people sound intelligent if they are constantly critical and passing judgement, but it has little to do with reality. 

I don’t think I’ve gotten to the end of a TF podcast for a while. The negative conjecture that they peddle as absolute fact boils my piss. They contradict themselves multiple times each show. And lastly the main cretin should stick to the Northumberland taxi business, if he genuinely wants to speak from a position of authority

[Nucasol]

19 minutes ago, Ghandis Flip-Flop said:

I don’t think I’ve gotten to the end of a TF podcast for a while. The negative conjecture that they peddle as absolute fact boils my piss. They contradict themselves multiple times each show. And lastly the main cretin should stick to the Northumberland taxi business, if he genuinely wants to speak from a position of authority

[Dr Jinx]

Negative triggering comments or stories get more clicks, truth will always be secondary when it comes to some of that lot.
 

Howe already knows Mitchell and if he did knock us back to begin with I'd say it was over small details in the job spec.
 

He wanted some binding assurances over the level of control he wanted in the job and he's got them now. It's just negotiating.. and probably a good sign that he's going to fight our corner in a more than capable way.

[Danh1]

1 hour ago, Ghandis Flip-Flop said:

I don’t think I’ve gotten to the end of a TF podcast for a while. The negative conjecture that they peddle as absolute fact boils my piss. They contradict themselves multiple times each show. And lastly the main cretin should stick to the Northumberland taxi business, if he genuinely wants to speak from a position of authority

£57 to Blackburn and back says it all about what them Tory bastards think of the fans. 

[Joelinton7]

1 hour ago, Toonjam88 said:

100% this 👍🏻

he will be annoyed as the only people he still might have got some info from has now now left the club. 
blokes a idiot he blocked me on Twitter for calling him out about they way he went on about the takeover. 

This is what I thought. Luke, the true faith lot are throwing their toys out of the pram because AS and MG have left. They used to get invited to stuff by them and hang around on the train with them after away games probably getting little tidbits of info. They’re just coming across as petty now.