Everything Paul Mitchell said about Newcastle United transfers & truth behind £70m Marc Guehi pursuit

It comes after a disappointing summer transfer window for Newcastle following Mitchell’s arrival in July. The Magpies sporting director reflected on the summer business, his relationship with head coach Eddie Howe and the club’s ambitions moving forward and an illuminating interview.

You can read our interviews with Mitchell regarding the Marc Guehi saga and summer recruitment as well as his meeting with chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan using the links below.

Here is everything Paul Mitchell said on Newcastle’s summer transfer business...

What are your overall reflections on the window? You were criticised. Did it go wrong?

 “I think it’s difficult coming into a predefined strategy. Football clubs do have a strategy. It is pre-planned for a long period of time before just the first of July. It’s no longer ad hoc and just thinking on your feet.

“I don’t think that goes on at this level, it definitely doesn’t go on here. You look how methodical our head coach is. I think you look at us as a business and how we are evolving, we have plans, we have strategies.

“My learning coming in, in a prearranged, existing strategy is hard. You ultimately then find yourself supporting on things more than driving elements of it. That for me was a learning.”

Do you feel like you didn’t get the player you personally wanted? You said in Germany you would get at least one player in. Is that fair?

“It depends. We did ultimately add to the squad. The role of self and a sporting director is always looking at the bigger picture. We added value. Turning Lewis Hall into a full-time Newcastle player. The experiences of the end of the season adds value. It adds an upturn in the ability of the team to perform. Sandro coming back form a year out is a new addition to the squad. Lloyd Kelly, a new addition, gives us multi-functionality from left centre back to left back.

“There was additions. William coming in was a strategic investment by us all. We felt with Alex and Callum and then adding a younger one to succession plan and over time that was the right type of hire that I was involved in.

“We looked at the window. There were targets. Could there have been more? I would say potentially. Do we have to look at the way we recruit and scout and also do we have to look where we do, because the market is complicated, we have seen the impact PSR has had. I don’t think anyone understood the impact PSR would have on people’s strategies, people’s abilities to spend. 

“I think there has been 40 per cent less expenditure. What you do learn in Europe is if no one spends money, players struggle to move. Finances fund the market and fluidity of movement. That also had an impact for everyone.

“You look at the money we have invested up to this point, £250 million net over the last two-and-a-half years. It’s a lot of money and was our model in place to be able to spend more to the levels we would have liked to keep enhancing the team? I don’t think it was, because we haven’t sold a player during that time, barring what we were forced to do through legislation of PSR.

“There hasn’t been a clear strategic strategy over the last five year to say once we get to this point, can we keep enhancing the team with the same level of investment? I don’t think that was factored into the strategies we had and that is a learning for everyone but I do think we have to be more global in our vision of the players we sign. I think the skill, whether it be personal philosophy or the demands of financial fair play (PSR) has to come into play where you have to find undervalued talent at a certain age profile.

“You look at a lot of the signings this summer, it is of a certain age profile, so there is things we need to assess.

‘There are things we got wrong in our strategy for sure. Me coming in when I did probably wasn’t the best timing for the organisation but what it has done is allow me to witness a process.

“And now it allows to me to analyse that process and make sure we put the next – ultimately January, next summer, five years down the line – process in place where we can become a sustainable high performer.

“As custodians of this club we can’t just keep spending, spending because at some point that won’t enable the club to facilitate its goals and I don’t think any Newcastle fan wants to see this club in a place where other clubs were last season with docked points, with financial penalties because that can really affect our growth.

Pursuing certain top targets during the summer window?

“Is there a point of value for every single player and did maybe this football club need to draw a line in the sand of ‘we’re not going to overpay?’ Probably looking at the players we have signed – and we’ve signed some really good players – could we say that some of those players potentially cost more money than they should have done in the market at that current context? You probably could have that argument and discussion.

“For this club to come out and say actually, we really liked this player and thought he could have bring benefit to this squad but it is at any cost? Is it at financial risk to the organisation and our growth and our plan? I don’t think we should do that. That’s a personal choice. Others might have a different opinion on that but I do take that part of my job seriously.

“Would it have been easier to sit in front of you all with hallmark signings that cost a load of money? Of course it would. But ultimately have them at the detriment to Newcastle’s ability to grow and high strategic ambitions for Paul Mitchell’s glorification, that’s not the job I’m paid to do. I’m paid to do the job in the short, the medium the long-term.

[£60m+ to spend on one player] Why didn’t you look at other options in the transfer window?

“We had a player as the key core target. We were still in dialect all the way through but Eddie was very clear, and it’s not up to me after seven weeks to say we’ll do this and that, because I’m in a supporting role…

“Were there options, of course there were, as that’s the responsibility of the department and NUFC, but Eddie was very clear that he had to feel comfortable that the person added value because we have really good players. That’s why we ended up where we did.

“And he’s smart, he was engaged in all the conversations about PSR, spend, cost, cash-flow, he’s a smart head coach that has the capacity to be in and kept updated on those conversations. And that was decision he took - it was that player or he felt that he was comfortable with the quality that we have.

“What has been lost this window, we have added internally with less games, squad availability will be much higher, getting big status starting XI players back into the starting XI and ultimately a second record signing in Sandro Tonali back into the team, that’s added to the quality.

“There's always ways of adding value to your squad, but it's about your pre-determined strategy going in. You've got to create different scenarios.”

 Was it a bad transfer window?

“My job is to get us in five years’ time to our ambition. Once again I have to weigh up the pros and cons of the short-term nature of performances today and tomorrow in the Premier League while enabling us to get to our five-year objective.

“We didn’t have the sales window we thought we would have – and we have to look at that strategy as well, was that right, it was all aligned with the head coach. We have a lot to look at.

“When you look at how teams are built if you, on average, recruit six players in a three-year cycles you get to 18 and that’s a squad. When you look back retrospectively that’s your impact. That’s where we’re trying to get the squad now.

“It’s hard. We’ve invested £250m and I think what’s been lost in the summer was… it wasn’t a Monaco type situation. It wasn’t a catastrophe, it wasn’t a total rebuild or reset, it was building on some good work.

“I think we forget the quality of the team we’ve got. The training ground is a ghost town and that’s what you want it to be – it means we’ve got really good players participating in international football and that’s the level and status of this club. We have a really, really good team and you’ve got to be careful not to be driven by your own ego to say ‘Look, I’ve made a difference’.

“We’ve got great players signed by great investment from this ownership and you can sometimes damage it.

"Should our scouting and recruitment be driven more extensively with a wider reaching net? It definitely should be because this is becoming a really nuanced space now, when you just can't capitally fund everything every year and buying loads of players at peak age and peak price.

“Of course it needs to be, and that's the responsibility of me, the scouting team, the recruitment team and Eddie. To do that, to look at that. Is it fit for purpose? 

"Not last winter gone, the winter before that. Is it fit for purpose in the modern game, with the modern challenges? Because other clubs that have maybe adopted a different approach over time, with more intelligence, maybe more data-informed than what we are, actually prospered, didn't they, this window? And I think that's where we have to grow to be now. 

"It's kind of the next phase of the growth of this project. We have to become better in this area of expertise, and there's a skill.

 You were willing to almost sacrifice this window, just to not spend money for the sake of it?

"For me, there's two parts to that. I think ultimately, unless we felt like, and I say we, and I think unless Eddie really felt a player was going to have a difference and bring a difference to the starting XI, I think he even said this in the pre-match against Southampton, we'd rather not overpay that once again in the next window could become a limiting factor for the future, but also the recognition we have a really good team full of internationals. 

"I think this became a little bit more sensitive with Fabby getting the sending off, because everyone's like, right, now there is a must, but against Wolves, it's going to be in the squad, that was two weeks ago. 

"So, you know, once again, there's a short-sightedness that we can operate in a motion or there's a longitudinal strategy that I think when you look at the journey Newcastle's on, the financial restraints of the global game, we have to fall into the latter. I think we would all agree that we have to be more strategic in this approach. 

"We can't do what we probably have done in the last two and a half years and just say right, let's just physically and only capitally fund this and not sell a player and just build that way because we're already, through great work by many involved, including Eddie, including Darren Eales, got ourselves out of quite a big hole between June and July.

"I think we have to be smarter and more intelligent not to find ourselves in that hole again. So I think that there is strategy that comes into play. I think if we could have signed a player that we actively could make a really good squad better, would we? Of course we would. 

"Was, let's say, the scouting network, the lengths and breadths of our process and our strategies in terms of just that area of expertise, including the influence of Eddie Howe, bigger and broader enough? Probably not. And that's the bit we analyse to be better. That's the bit where we have to adjust and modernise.

"And also, maybe that's a bit of reality as well, like, can we spend to the same level as what we've spent the last two and a half years? When sustainability is real, you cannot keep spending and not selling any football players. The maths doesn't work. 

"I think you look at the teams that have really heavily spent this summer, they've sold players at certain points in the last couple of years, that has helped fund their spends this year, we haven't in the last two and a half years. They come in equal measure, you know, and that's the responsibility of the holistic club, from the head coach, who is very widely influencing all of these decisions, to myself in my new responsibility as the sporting director, to the CEO, to the overarching business."

Are you looking for a big player sale to fund transfer spending again?

"I think at the moment we've got to balance out the aggregate because at the moment it's like 100 to zero and I think we've got to find our position in the market where both of them attribute and feed each other, because every other club does that. 

"Sometimes I think people, get a bit confused with 'big clubs don't sell players, they just buy players from the smaller clubs', by once again a sustainable model and I think there's a lot of good learnings in Liverpool's practices. 

"Even this year if you look, you say a big one, but you look. what Liverpool did, I don't think they lost a big one, but they did do a Calvalho at 25 and they did do the centre-back at 25, that's still 50 and then you can fund a big one yourself.

“So there has to be a more balanced approach, there has to be a more balanced model and there definitely has to be a more strategic approach here that we haven't had the last two and a half years. 

"I think the work that has been done has been really good and set solid foundations in terms of the ability of the squad to perform at the level of ambitions of the club. 

"And I think one thing that has been maybe underplayed is we don't have a very difficult European-positioned game in the week. Last year, I think all you guys would say, really caused us a lot of problems. And we have a squad availability last year that was at some points in the season 55 per cent. That's nearly half of your players injured. 

"And if you look at the quality of players, let's say from starting XI, Harvey Barnes, Joelinton, Joe Willock.

"Those things have a cause and effect of the ability of this team to perform this year. And those things add an additional performance effect.

“I know it's great to recruit loads of players, but internally we've inherited a lot of quality back from that investment and we need to utilise that because if we don't utilise the investment from the past and enhance that investment, we'll once again fall into this vicious cycle of not being able to sell players.

One of the biggest gripes of the fans when they look back two or three windows, you could say that you've only signed one guaranteed first-team starter in the last three windows in Sandro Tonali.

"It's an interest as I haven't tracked back to see who we signed where, I've kind of just been looking at the two-and-a-half-year period because I do like to look in cycles of three. 

"But I think if you look at where we've placed our investment, we've placed that between performance players and we've placed that between young players. So there's different expectations there, I think Bruno was signed as a performance player. to play now. Kieran was signed as a performance player to play now.

“I think even Alex was signed as a performance player [at 22]. So was signed as a performance expectation to play now. 

"Whether it's Lewis [Hall], you've signed like loan with obligation, you know, you've got a year, he's developing for the future. Tino [Livramento] now, that nice succession plan, and now the competitive element with Kieran. So I think there's different players we've signed, whether they be performance or investment.

"So once again, if you sign investment players for growth, because you've got performance players in front, there needs to be a time period. And once again, we have to measure and moderate that. 

Newcastle tax, the club have been quoted huge sums for players previously?

“The [Newcastle tax] was a real thing. It's about setting precedents to the market that we will pay fair value for the right profile [of player] for sure.

“It shouldn't be misconceived of a lack of ambition, I just think that's the model you have to work in the modern game now. There are a lot of common factors that we need to adjust that we need to make sure we keep being sustainably successful.

“It should not be lobbied against ambition because if we just spend, spend, spend, spend once again, we become accountable to that by penalties, fines and points deductions and that isn't good leadership, that isn't being a good custodian of the club, that isn't taking your role responsibly, you're being negligent. That is only for one thing, it's for your ego. We're not going to do that.” 

Do you think this club has looked at signing Premier League players too much?

“I wouldn’t say too much because we’ve signed players from other leagues at great cost. But I think it’s normal for domestic clubs to look first domestically.

“I just think there probably needs to be more of a balance at looking externally and globally and looking that way and stretch our radius. But it’s normal to look domestically.

“There just needs to be a better balance. But we have signed players from abroad. We have done that, it’s clear. Should we stretch our radius, look at where there’s under-valued pockets of talent, like the way I managed to do quite successfully at Monaco should we balance our strategy.”

Do you need more staff to help with that?

“More staff? Good question. More staff no. Probably adjustment of strategy to new realities of the game. You should always challenge yourself and I think whatever this window was perceived to be or not to be you should always analyse. Once again you’re building to the next one and the next one after that. 

“I’ll know whether we’ve done a good job in five years time. I know that’s not what people like to hear and that requires patience. But that’s the reality. Change cycles take that kind of length of time, three years minimum probably, five years maximum. 

“For me that’s where we should be looking.”

Focus too narrow regarding player recruitment?

“You can be on multiple deals at any one time, the focus doesn't have to be that narrow. We probably were too narrow, but coming in in mid-July, it's not my strategy to control. It's my strategy to support.

“So I think where Eddie got to, I could accept because we got Fabi and Krafty [Schar and Emil Krafth], very good players, and we've got other ways of manipulating the squad to make a great starting 11 competitive to our ambition.

“Because of PSR you don't have the luxury of going, big signing, big signing. You have to make the decision of where you invest with the long-term view in mind.”