What Newcastle United transfer window adviser said back at the start – Essential reading | OneFootball

If you can say what part Nick Hammond played in the post-takeover transformation of Newcastle United, then fair play.

I have to say that I wouldn’t even have recognised/remembered the name.

With Mike Ashley having finally gone the distance, his legacy left behind for the new Newcastle United owners and Eddie Howe was a third relegation in 13 Premier League seasons that United had kicked off under Ashley control.

The odds weren’t great on survival having taken over such a shambles, on and off the pitch. mid-season from Ashley and Bruce.

It was an easy choice to also send Ashley’s caretaker/CEO Lee Charnley packing very quickly as well.

However, what the situation basically was as Newcastle United moved towards January 2022, was a team massive favourites to be relegated, no CEO, no Sporting Director, plus in football terms very inexperienced owners.

Eddie Howe had of course been brought in during November 2021, however, he couldn’t do it all by himself. He wasn’t a miracle worker…although of course plenty Newcastle United fans now (June 2025) would claim that for sure after what he has achieved.

Anyway, the Newcastle United owners made another appointment in December 2021, a short-term one…Nick Hammond.

With no senior leadership team off the pitch at St James’ Park, no CEO or Sporting Director, the new Newcastle United owners appointed a temporary transfer window adviser as they headed towards their very first AND very crucial (January 2022) transfer window.

The former Reading, West Brom and Celtic Technical Director, Nick Hammond, purely engaged to help with the then upcoming January 2022 transfer window on a temporary basis.

That January 2022 window was arguably the best ever (so far) Newcastle United transfer window under these NUFC owners, despite having to balance the very immediate threat of relegation and what would hopefully come afterwards, in terms of progressing in the Premier League if/when avoiding relegation. In total, five January signings were eventually made, with Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood (only scored two goals that second half of the 2021/22 season but was instrumental to survival in an unselfish role, United picking up 29 points in the 15 PL matches Wood started), Bruno Guimaraes and Dan Burn bought in, as well as Matt Targett on loan.

Newcastle United are now into arguably the most important transfer window since that January 2022 one, yet we see Sporting Director Paul Mitchell now leaving after less than a year at NUFC and supposedly still going to be working for the club until the end of this month.

Whilst Mitchell’s friend and former colleague, NUFC CEO Darren Eales, was announced in September 2024 to be shortly leaving the club once a replacement was found, due sadly to him having been diagnosed as having a chronic form of blood cancer. Now nine months on and still no new CEO identified, never mind started work.

To many observers, this might appear to look all a bit of a shambles at Newcastle United at such a crucial time, with no first team contenders signed for two years due to PSR issues. Yet now the club in a far better position PSR wise after the hard yards of those barren windows, United able to now push once again in the transfer market this summer. The question is though, who is going to be doing the pushing and why has this CEO and Sporting Director situation been allowed to get to this point?

Anyway, very interesting to hear what Nick Hammond had to say over three years ago…

Following his brief time working at St James’ Park helping with that January 2022 window, this is what Nick Hammond told Training Ground Guru about his work at Newcastle United – 31 March 2022:

“To me, it was a really interesting and quite exciting opportunity to come and work with the new owners, of which there are three groups; with Eddie Howe, who I knew from being in the game for a long time; and Steve Nickson, an extremely good, experienced Head of Recruitment.

“Newcastle have a long-term plan, for sure, but they had a short-term problem when we were going into the January window. Quite clearly they wanted to appoint a new CEO, a new Sporting Director and build the club out from there, but in the short term they were approaching the January window and looking for someone who had a degree of experience navigating trough the complexities of any transfer window, let alone a January window.

“My job, really, was to advise the owners in relation to the players, the due diligence around the players and the financial aspects of the deals they were trying to complete.

“I said to the guys at the start, this will be the hardest transfer window you’ll probably ever have, because you are literally a group of people coming together in a very short space of time and having to hit the ground running.

“Fortunately there’s a very experienced Head Coach there, a very clear thinking guy, very precise in terms of what he wants and what he wanted, which is critical for a Head Coach – that clarity that comes from them is massively important. Fortunately Eddie Howe gave that to the people dealing with the transfer window at Newcastle.

“My role (at Newcastle) was a little bit more in the background than I would be as a normal Sporting Director, as a Sporting Director over my career I would lead the discussions, lead the negotiations with potential signings.

“This role was sort of a step removed from that, doing the checks and balances in the background, having an opinion on the players who had already been identified by Steve Nickson and his team, having taken a good steer from Eddie Howe, the new Head Coach, who had to make very quick decisions in terms of where he saw his squad.

“It was a fascinating experience, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but very challenging time for them (the owners).

“It was interesting in as much as here you’ve got a group of people who all want to achieve the same thing but they’re new, they’re almost thrown together.

“I don’t mean that in a haphazard way, but new group of owners; new Head Coach; Steve (Nickson), who’s been in the building for a long time, and all of a sudden in a very short space of time you’ve got to come together and make some decisions to try and strengthen the team for what is the short term ambition of staying in the Premier League.”

In February 2022 it was announced that Dan Ashworth would become the NUFC Sporting Director, a job he started in June 2022. Then in July 2022 Darren Eales became Newcastle United CEO.

Can Eddie Howe and others at Newcastle United repeat that spectacular success of the January 2022 window,, Sven Botman was also identified but asked to wait until summer 2022 before joining NUFC, as he wanted to finish off the Champions League campaign at Lille.

As for Nick Hammond, he ended up at Leeds United as an adviser after their relegation in 2023 and has been given a lot of credit for their now bouncing back to the Premier League.