'Completed' - Official source confirms imminent Newcastle United transfer after January clause triggered

As revealed by The Gazette, the 21-year-old midfielder has been training with Pools this month with the view to earning a permanent deal at the National League club. Miley represented Newcastle’s first team in pre-season before being loaned out to Newport County for the first half of the 2024-25 season.

But after just three starts in League Two, Newcastle triggered the break clause in his loan deal to recall him earlier this month with the intention of finding him a new permanent club. Now Hartlepool are set to complete the signing of Miley this week ahead of Saturday’s match away at Braintree Town (3pm kick-off).

Pools boss Lawrence confirmed the imminent transfer following his side’s 2-0 defeat at Barnet on Tuesday night.

“The deal should be complete in time for the weekend,” Lawrence said via BBC Tees. “He’ll be in the squad, I’m not anticipating any last-minute registration problems so that deal is virtually done.

“The likelihood is that he'll be on the bench. He's a good, technical player as you’d expect coming from Newcastle. Lots of skill, vision. He's got to adapt to the physicality of this league, but he's certainly got the talent and the ability.”

Miley’s last official outing for Newcastle came for the Under-21s in a 4-2 Premier League 2 defeat at Southampton on January 17. Under-21s lead coach Diarmuid O’Carroll recently told The Gazette that the plan for Miley was to find him a ‘home’ to get a run of consistent matches after two injury-hit campaigns.

“Jamie's done brilliant, he came back in,” O’Carroll said last week. “He played [at Southampton]. He was a shining light in the performance.

“He's been brilliant around the group. He's a really good boy. Obviously gets on really well with the lads.

“A talented footballer, like everything, just wants to find a home and get a run of games and get a little bit of confidence in the right team around him.

“But he's someone that we believe has got talent and we'd like to push him on and see where he goes next.”