Paul Mitchell (Sporting Director)

[Nobody]

1 hour ago, Gallowgate Toon said:

Talking about overpaying for some of your current players is an interesting way to go about things.

 

Referenced himself in the third person. Giant red flag.

Who is it we've supposedly over spent on? Hall and Tonali if we're being harsh maybe? I can't really think of anyone else that we've signed that hasn't been a terrific signing at that price point

[Kid Icarus]

Not a fan of the way he's speaking tbh.

• He has that management speak about him that I'm hardwired to distrust.
• The 'won't pay over the odds' thing makes no sense when he'd already bid way over the odds for Guehi by the time we walked away.
• Rightly or wrongly I'm not sure how professional it is to dig out your predecessor, and
• I have no idea what he's thinking of suggesting we potentially overpaid on our existing players!

 

More than all of that though, I don't like the way he particularly spoke about Howe.

 

Howe is every bit a Newcastle manager and at our best has us playing exactly in keeping with our history imo. He was the chief architect of that, the founder of it from the take over, not just as a coach but as a de facto Director of Football.

 

Imo that's our foundation and identity, that's 'the philosophy' of Newcastle now, for want of a less clichéd description.

 

Of course we need a dedicated DoF and a long term strategy, but that philosophy should be the preface to Mitchell's input. Howe not only has the right to a say on that basis, he has the credit in the bank as a coach, as part of the recruitment team pre-Mitchell and pre-Ashworth (when we signed our best players I should add), and has a fantastic record for spotting talent and talent that goes on to make a huge profit.

 

Mitchell has a good record too (albeit that Monaco forum has casted doubt on that for me), but imo this needs to remain as a collaboration and be understood as being such, not as an exercise in sidelining Howe to coaching alone with him seen as a problem if he's not on board with Mitchell's player choices.

 

Howe has the scorecard marked massively in his favour, on several fronts and particularly with us, to warrant his continued inclusion in recruitment, whereas so far Mitchell has a couple against him on his scorecard and quite frankly I don't particularly trust him or Eales at the moment. 

 

 

Edited September 4 by Kid Icarus

[Irish Magpie]

Amazes me sometimes how we can all read the same things and yet arrive at different conclusions. I read Hope's (Boo!) and Douglas's articles and on the whole found nothing but positivity for the future.

Never read Edward's as it may have incensed me.

Most of what I took from it was Ashworth is a charlatan, already past his expertise/experience level (dinosaur) and being left behind - good luck Man U! (snigger).

[Nobody]

1 hour ago, timeEd32 said:

If you only read the Hope piece then you'd definitely come away feeling like it was all quite negative and entirely focused on Eddie. Everyone should read the Hope, Edwards, and Douglas pieces because it definitely shows the spin Hope is putting on things.

 

I wish the club would release a video of the entire interview.

The way English media work is really fucking weird like. The journos just puts a bunch of quotes out and then make their own article around that, instead of actually posting the questions and the direct answers to those questions and then have an analysis around it. 

An article about an interview should make it very clear what questions are being answered, but that never seems to happen in British media. 

[TheBrownBottle]

The Brown Bottle read Paul Mitchell's comments, and The Brown Bottle is of the opinion that constantly referring to yourself in the third person is totally and utterly normal.

[buzza]

30 minutes ago, 80 said:

Haven't read others' responses to this yet, but for me: 

 

I'm not minded to be generous in assessing what he says for a variety of reasons, so with that in mind, everything there comes across as a lot of hot air and politics. There's barely anything substantial to it that an outsider with passing knowledge couldn't say. The idea the Guehi saga has publicly drawn a line in the sand and shown our strength to other clubs is fanciful.

 

Also his grammar is horrific - "Was, let’s say, the scouting network, the lengths and breadths of our process bigger and broader enough?"

 

Happy to judge him on his future actions instead, but nothing here has impressed me.

 

 

 

The first time I heard him talk I also heard some distant alarm ring in my head... he kind of reminded me of "The King" and some of the snake charm patter he had.

He is not that eloquent and conjures up an image of a smooth car sales rep who was quick/clever but never had any type of education.

[buzza]

But I won't judge a book by it's cover, not until a couple of chapters have been taken in!

[Conjo]

1 hour ago, gbandit said:

It’s interesting because we’ve underpaid for Gordon, Isak and Bruno by a decent margin 

 

In hindsight it has turned out to be good deals because they ended up being massive successes. I think we probably paid more for them at the time than what other clubs bar Man Utd, Chelsea & Man City would have had to. It's not a Newcastle tax as much as the knowledge that our owners have a lot of money so should be able to pay more than other for the same players.

[TheBrownBottle]

13 minutes ago, Nobody said:

Who is it we've supposedly over spent on? Hall and Tonali if we're being harsh maybe? I can't really think of anyone else that we've signed that hasn't been a terrific signing at that price point

It isn't that they haven't worked at as signings, it is that we paid more than their presumed value at that point.  A player being worth more two years later doesn't mean that you didn't pay more than the going rate at the time.

 

 

[80]

1 hour ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Do we really believe that Howe is stupid enough to expect or demand a level of control that probably doesn’t exist at any top-level club? Surely he knows enough to work within a modern football setup, he’s a smart young manager. 

Indeed, but maybe it suits others to have him portrayed that way...

 

1 hour ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

But I mean, under Howe we have signed plenty from abroad. Did he not want Botman, Bruno and Isak? 

And Tonali, who he 'fell in love with'.  And he's been sweet on a number of others who didn't come off, like Ekitike and Nmecha, off the top of my head. It's a false narrative.

 

 

Edited September 4 by 80

[80]

I think we need to remember very clearly which side our bread is buttered. Especially when it comes to issues where we don't have cast iron evidence and are relying on trust.

[Kid Icarus]

Honestly I find the bit about us potentially overpaying on players a bit odd.

 

Putting aside the connotations of blame and assessment of the worth of our players, with hindsight I can't name a player we signed who hasn't been worth it or more in terms of what they've done for us, what they're worth now or what they'll be worth to us in the future, both in terms of resale value and contribution on the field.

 

Targett, probably, but reallu that was down to injury.

 

And just as the added chaser to that, he's saying all this having just bid 60+5m for Marc Guehi and 50m for Anthony Elanga.

 

 

Edited September 4 by Kid Icarus

[duo]

edit:wrong thread

 

 

Edited September 4 by duo

[Stuy_O]

20 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Not a fan of the way he's speaking tbh.

• He has that management speak about him that I'm hardwired to distrust.
• The 'won't pay over the odds' thing makes no sense when he'd already bid way over the odds for Guehi by the time we walked away.
• Rightly or wrongly I'm not sure how professional it is to dig out your predecessor, and
• I have no idea what he's thinking of suggesting we potentially overpaid on our existing players!

 

More than all of that though, I don't like the way he particularly spoke about Howe.

 

Howe is every bit a Newcastle manager and at our best has us playing exactly in keeping with our history imo. He was the chief architect of that, the founder of it from the take over, not just as a coach but as a de facto Director of Football.

 

Imo that's our foundation and identity, that's 'the philosophy' of Newcastle now, for want of a less clichéd description.

 

Of course we need a dedicated DoF and a long term strategy, but that philosophy should be the preface to Mitchell's input. Howe not only has the right to a say on that basis, he has the credit in the bank as a coach, as part of the recruitment team pre-Mitchell and pre-Ashworth (when we signed our best players I should add), and has a fantastic record for spotting talent and talent that goes on to make a huge profit.

 

Mitchell has a good record too (albeit that Monaco forum has casted doubt on that for me), but imo this needs to remain as a collaboration and be understood as being such, not as an exercise in sidelining Howe to coaching alone with him seen as a problem if he's not on board with Mitchell's player choices.

 

Howe has the scorecard marked massively in his favour, on several fronts and particularly with us, to warrant his continued inclusion in recruitment, whereas so far Mitchell has a couple against him on his scorecard and quite frankly I don't particularly trust him or Eales at the moment. 

 

 

 

 

Good post. I don't particularly like the tone of this interview (granted only reading, not hearing), but I actually agree with a lot that's said in it. 

 

Newcastle 100% need a framework and structure and Eddie has to work within it. But I think Eales and Mitchell need to be very careful how they go about it. Obviously it's nice to have communication but I'm just not sure on the tone of this. 

[duo]

I feel it is a lot of criticism of a system that has been very very successful in recruitment to date.  Yes changes need to be made, and yes the last couple of transfer windows have been a shambles but prior to that our recruitment had arguably been the best in the league.

[LFEE]

2 hours ago, Collage said:

“You can be on multiple deals at any one time, the focus doesn’t have to be that narrow,” he said."

I mean, isn't this obvious?  Sounds strange to me.

Not to all the people on here who said we made a mistake by not pivoting early enough in the window to a RW. As if negotiations are like that in a transfer window 

[jonny1403]

1 hour ago, Hughesy said:

I think it’s easier enough to argue a case for overpaying for Burn, Targett, Wood, Barnes, Hall and Livramento. Even Tonali as the most expensive Italian ever (I think?) could be seen as an overpay.

 

It doesn’t mean any of the signings above are bad signings per se. With Hall and Tino, hopefully the fees we paid will be bargains given their obvious potential, but we’ve dropped a pretty large amount of cash on them.

Sorry what, Dan Burn? 10 million (or was it 13) for someone who has played pretty much every game since the takeover 

[Danh1]

4 minutes ago, duo said:

I feel it is a lot of criticism of a system that has been very very successful in recruitment to date.  Yes changes need to be made, and yes the last couple of transfer windows have been a shambles but prior to that our recruitment had arguably been the best in the league.

First two windows were superb. Then from there they have gotten worse imo, as we have focussed more on Premier League based players. Also not addressed the RW issue since the owners arrived (could argue Gordon was signed for RW). Being in a situation where it’s Guehi or no one is shambolic.
 

We have also been buying purples for big prices that we do not want to sell, and if we did, the profit margin wouldn’t be all that big. The pre Ashley players, nobody wants. 
 

Bring more data led and shopping abroad makes perfect sense imo. 

 

 

Edited September 4 by Danh1

[Kid Icarus]

26 minutes ago, buzza said:

But I won't judge a book by it's cover, not until a couple of chapters have been taken in!

Personally when I read a book and there's a ton of exposition at the start and narrated in the third person I know straight away that it's going to be shite/I don't like the protagonist 

 

'I am Mitchell's inflamed sense of rejection'

 

 

Edited September 4 by Kid Icarus

[80]

1 minute ago, Kid Icarus said:

Honestly I find the bit about us potentially overpaying on players a bit odd.

 

Putting aside the connotations of blame and assessment of the worth of our players, with hindsight I can't name a player we signed who isn't worth it or more in terms of what they've been worth to us, what they're worth or what they'll be worth to us in the future, both in terms of resale value and contribution on the field.

 

Targett, probably, but reallu that was down to injury.

 

And just as the added chaser to that, he's saying all this having just bid 60+5m for Marc Guehi and 50m for Anthony Elanga.

I think you can make the argument that 'hey, we would've grown their value even more if we'd paid £10m less for each of them!' but it does feel a bit like a successor grasping for self-justification, given the growth we have actually achieved.

 

What's odd is we've done this 'Newcastle tax' chat before, and it was widely agreed in the industry that we'd successfully dampened that down. Splash the cash is an inaccurate characterisation.

 

To give the claim its due, I think you can argue last summer was the window we appeared to let ourselves get edged up. I remember Livramento's fee seeming to crawl up from about £23m to £40m over a long period. Barnes too, as I recall. But is Mitchell in a position to know Everton would've sold Gordon for £30m?

[Nobody]

22 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It isn't that they haven't worked at as signings, it is that we paid more than their presumed value at that point.  A player being worth more two years later doesn't mean that you didn't pay more than the going rate at the time.

 

 

Isak, Bruno, Botman were all incredible value at the time as well though. No one thought we overpaid for Tonali, if anything he was a massive coup. Gordon I might agree with that the perceived value was over the top, but that perceived value was clearly a load of tosh.

I know I might be very biased when it comes to Isak, but remember I've watched him since he was 16, I knew he would be an incredible signing for Howe. 

[Disco]

45 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Not a fan of the way he's speaking tbh.

• He has that management speak about him that I'm hardwired to distrust.
• The 'won't pay over the odds' thing makes no sense when he'd already bid way over the odds for Guehi by the time we walked away.
• Rightly or wrongly I'm not sure how professional it is to dig out your predecessor, and
• I have no idea what he's thinking of suggesting we potentially overpaid on our existing players!

 

More than all of that though, I don't like the way he particularly spoke about Howe.

 

Howe is every bit a Newcastle manager and at our best has us playing exactly in keeping with our history imo. He was the chief architect of that, the founder of it from the take over, not just as a coach but as a de facto Director of Football.

 

Imo that's our foundation and identity, that's 'the philosophy' of Newcastle now, for want of a less clichéd description.

 

Of course we need a dedicated DoF and a long term strategy, but that philosophy should be the preface to Mitchell's input. Howe not only has the right to a say on that basis, he has the credit in the bank as a coach, as part of the recruitment team pre-Mitchell and pre-Ashworth (when we signed our best players I should add), and has a fantastic record for spotting talent and talent that goes on to make a huge profit.

 

Mitchell has a good record too (albeit that Monaco forum has casted doubt on that for me), but imo this needs to remain as a collaboration and be understood as being such, not as an exercise in sidelining Howe to coaching alone with him seen as a problem if he's not on board with Mitchell's player choices.

 

Howe has the scorecard marked massively in his favour, on several fronts and particularly with us, to warrant his continued inclusion in recruitment, whereas so far Mitchell has a couple against him on his scorecard and quite frankly I don't particularly trust him or Eales at the moment. 

 

 

 

Im loosely on this page although I do appreciate he’s fronted up…of sorts.

[RobsonsWonderland]

I think he is right in principle that other clubs do try and squeeze extra money out of us.

 

People have said that on here since man united tried to rip our eyes out over a loan deal, villa bought the CB on a cheaper deal then we bid, no way would we get elanga for the 15 mill forest paid.

 

So maybe the players we did buy would have went elsewhere for less then the fees we paid. 

 

We just don't know because we paid the extra money to get the deal across the line

[duo]

My biggest issue with the interview is he has taken zero accountability for the shambles.  And whilst he was only in the role since July - the buck really should stop at him.  

 

I also find the quote odd about us overpaying - utter rubbish.  Bruno,  Isak, Gordon - bargains.  Tonali - maybe as jury is still out.  But on the whole - I think we've bought well.

 

 

Edited September 4 by duo

[LFEE]

21 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Honestly I find the bit about us potentially overpaying on players a bit odd.

 

Putting aside the connotations of blame and assessment of the worth of our players, with hindsight I can't name a player we signed who hasn't been worth it or more in terms of what they've done for us, what they're worth now or what they'll be worth to us in the future, both in terms of resale value and contribution on the field.

 

Targett, probably, but reallu that was down to injury.

 

And just as the added chaser to that, he's saying all this having just bid 60+5m for Marc Guehi and 50m for Anthony Elanga.

 

 

 

We never said how much we bid. Pretty sure we’ve denied the figures quoted with both deals. Especially Elanga.

 

Don’t believe everything you are fed to believe. Especially last few days of the window. A lot of nonsense usually reported.