This was when the seeds were first sown that have led to current problems at Newcastle United | OneFootball

Some serious challenges for Newcastle United at the minute.

Everybody has different ideas on the solution(s).

Newcastle United doing very well in the Champions League with three wins in four matches, as well as a place in the League Cup quarter-finals for a fourth year in a row, defeat Fulham at St James’ Park and it will be a third Carabao Cup semi-finals for a third time in four years.

In the Premier League though it has been a struggle.

Only three league wins in 11 matches so far, all three of those at home to a trio of clubs who find themselves amongst the six who are below Newcastle United in the Premier League table, as we are now into the November 2025 international break.

So what has caused these current Premier League problems for Newcastle United?

I think the seeds were first sown some considerable time ago.

They became public some 17 months ago but actually go far further back than even that.

In  June 2024, we found out via some of the more reliable journalists that Newcastle United had a PSR shortfall of £50m+ in that year’s accounts, which had to be corrected by the financial year end on 30 June 2024.

Newcastle United would break three year PSR limits unless £50m+ of pure PSR profit could be generated in the days of June 2024 that remained.

This wasn’t selling one or more players for £50m+, it was £50m+ profit compared to the book value of the players, taking amortisation into account etc.

It was reported that Newcastle United were having to look at all options, including selling one of the very top stars, with potentially Alexander Isak (Chelsea interested apparently) or Anthony Gordon (Liverpool interested) leaving. If one of those could be sold for close to £100m, that would produce the £50m+ PSR profit compared to either player’s then current book value.

As we are all now well aware though, homegrown players are the ‘best’ to sell when it comes to PSR, as they haven’t had a transfer fee paid for them and any transfer fee received is pretty much all profit where PSR is concerned. So instead of an Isak or Gordon leaving, 21 year old lifelong Newcastle United fan Elliot Anderson was sold for a reported £35m to Forest, as well as 19 year old Yankuba Minteh (who had cost only £7m a year before) for a reported £33m to Brighton.

That sorted the immediate PSR crisis but what impact could this have on the future?

Well, I think we are finding out already.

Yankuba Minteh has looked a right handful each time Newcastle have faced Brighton and indeed he has scored in two of the three matches. In an alternative universe, Minteh would have had proper settling in season with NUFC across 2024/25 getting matches and sub appearances, then this season be first choice on the right for Eddie Howe’s side, rather than down at Brighton.

As for England regular Elliot Anderson…

With Joelinton struggling to play match after match, the thought of Anderson in a midfield trio with Bruno and Tonali would have been more than interesting now. Plus Anderson was versatile enough to potentially play in a team with all three of these NUFC midfielders. Instead, he has arguably been Forest’s best player since leaving Newcastle, as well as picking up man of the match awards for England.

I have always found it strange that the media didn’t make more of how Newcastle United managed to get themselves into such a mess when they got to June 2024.

What an absolute shambles it was, to be desperately scratching about to find clubs willing to take two of our very brightest young prospects AND then even having to vastly overpay a reported £20m for a goalkeeper (Vlachodimos) that Eddie Howe was never going to play, just so Forest would be willing to take Anderson and at the same time avoid PSR issues of their own.

So who at Newcastle United had allowed this embarrassing situation to develop that would lead to selling two of  NUFC’s future stars?

During the time that this serious PSR problem developed, Darren Eales was CEO throughout, whilst Amanda Staveley and her husband had a management contract to run the club on a day to day/week to week basis on behalf of the PIF and Reuben family club owners.

I suspect that if we haven’t heard by now, then we will never find out exactly who was to blame for the PSR late scramble and eventual sales of Minteh and Anderson.

Summer 2025

Moving on to this past summer.

As the 2024/25 stellar Newcastle United season came to an end, with a trophy won and a second Champions League in three years banked, thoughts were turned to NUFC competing on four fronts the following season.

Eddie Howe surprised everybody when he came out very publicly to say (demand…?) that it was absolutely essential that Newcastle United went all out to get key transfer targets in as early as possible.

With Champions League demands on top of domestic cups and trying to get a third CL qualification in four years, to keep the club moving forward, on and off the pitch, Eddie Howe wanting the very necessary quality signings to be made ASAP, to have a proper pre-season with their new NUFC teammates and allow United to hit the ground running when the season kicked off on 16 August 2025.

With the Club World Cup nonsense, it meant that the summer 2025 transfer window opened on 1 June.

In the end, Newcastle United made six senior signings this past summer.

On 11 July, Anthony Elanga arrived from Forest.

On 2 August, Aaron Ramsdale came in on loan from Southampton.

On 12 August, Malick Thiaw signed from AC Milan.

On 17 August, Aaron Ramsey arrived at St James’ Park from Villa.

On 30 August, Nick Woltemade signed from Stuttgart.

On 1 September, Yoane Wissa coming in from Brentford.

The pleas from Eddie Howe falling on deaf ears.

Well, if there were any ears around to hear him.

To all intents and purposes it appeared that Newcastle United operated across the summer with no Sporting Director and effectively, no CEO. Club Director and minority owner Jamie Reuben was reported to have got involved in trying to help one or more transfer happen.

(On the transfer window front, we also of course saw Eddie Howe having to deal with all the issues caused by Alexander Isak the absence of a CEO and Sporting Director meaning even more pressure put on the NUFC Head Coach in dealing with this.)

The net result was that as well as losing Isak, eventually, of the five permanent signings, four of them signed so late they had no pre-season whatsoever with Newcastle United. Anthony Elanga the only one signed in time to have some kind of proper pre-season, he didn’t arrive in time to be involved in the first pre-season friendly against Carlisle but the winger available for the remaining six friendlies. Loan keeper Aaron Ramsdale signed in early August and he played in the one friendly, against Espanyol.

Now I know that we shouldn’t take any individual pre-season result too seriously. However, with the only friendly win coming against non-league Carlisle, with then four defeats and two draws in the other six, it didn’t exactly paint a positive picture ahead of the big kick-off at Aston Villa on 16 August.

In the event, Anthony Elanga the only new signing to feature in that opening game of the season, loan signing Ramsdale on the bench. Thiaw was also an unused sub but clearly only on the bench as part of his integration into the squad, having arrived only days earlier. The other three of five permanent signings still to arrive.

We first saw Ramsey and Thiaw as late subs in the Liverpool match.

Ramsey then made his first start against Leeds and got crocked straight away.

Whilst Thiaw made his first start for Newcastle against Bournemouth on 21 September.

Woltemade’s first match where he was available came on 13 September and straight into the team and scoring the winner. That should also have been the first match where Wissa was available but crocked on international duty after signing for NUFC and still not available yet.

Especially as someone who invariably likes to give new signings plenty of time to integrate and adjust to new surroundings, Eddie Howe clearly hasn’t been helped by the fact that only one signing came in before August and had a proper pre-season.

With 11 Premier League matches now played, if all of the new signings had been available to kick off the season, that would have collectively meant a maximum of 66 PL starts so far. The reality has been only 20 between the six of them, with Woltemade (8) heavily (overly?) relied on and starting all eight league matches once signed and international clearance to play, then you have Thiaw (8) and Elanga (4), with Ramsey just the one Premier League start and both Wissa and Ramsdale yet to make one.

Of course, the fact that Elanga was a Premier League experienced player and signed in good time, yet has only started four of the eleven Premier League matches, isn’t a great positive.

However, I wanted in this article to concentrate on these longer standing factors that were always set to impact this 2025/26 season, especially the early stages of it. So the situation that ended up seeing Minteh and Anderson sold in June 2024 when they should have now been big players for Newcastle now, plus how this summer’s transfer window has led to so many extra complications, but call a half for now on the rest.

This article is lengthy enough and I will shortly follow up with another, going into all the other various areas and issues, giving my take on the quality of the signings made, the injuries and suspensions that have impacted, the tactics and formations used, the packed schedule of matches, with special focus naturally on Eddie Howe himself and how successfully (or not) he has coped with the cards he has been dealt. Plus how I personally see the season turning out as we go on.