Newcastle United planning two new staff additions after six-week injury blow & defender training ban

Newcastle already have Shola Ameobi and Peter Ramage as loan manager and assistant loan manager respectively. Now the club are looking to appoint a ‘loans and recruitment sports scientist’ as well as a ‘loans physiotherapist’.

The sports scientist role will support ‘all Newcastle loan players across a wide range of age groups’. It will also use a data-driven approach to player progress and monitoring while also identifying potential loan clubs for players based on their playing style and development needs.

The loans physio role is to enable Newcastle to deliver the best possible medical care and rehabilitation services to players out on loan from the club. “The health and wellbeing of our loan players is incredibly important and this role will act as the primary contact of those players by liaising with the loan club medical staff and leading on the prevention, diagnosis and rehabilitation of all injuries,” the job advert read.

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This comes after Newcastle midfielder Jamie Miley required surgery on a hernia during the opening weeks of his loan spell at Newport County. The 20-year-old was ruled out for six weeks and is still recovering as he waits to make his senior league debut.

Newcastle were able to arrange a productive loan spell for Yankuba Minteh to Feyenoord last season which enabled the club to demand a £33million fee from Brighton & Hove Albion in the summer. Minteh is set to return to Newcastle with Brighton this weekend.

But other loan spells have not been quite as successful with Garang Kuol spending last season on loan at Volendam but struggling to make an impact. Teenage defender Miodrag Pivas joined Newcastle in the summer before being loaned out to another Dutch side in Willem II.

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But the Serbian had to endure a tough spell after completing his loan move as he was banned from training due to work permit issues that have since been resolved. He has played just one minute of football so far this season.

In addition to Pivas and Miley, Newcastle also have goalkeeper Max Thompson (Chesterfield), Harrison Ashby (Queens Park Rangers) and Joe White (MK Dons) out on loan.

Last month, Newcastle’s new sporting director Paul Mitchell was asked whether more staff were needed to upgrade the club’s recruitment strategy. It came after Newcastle failed to land a major signing during the summer transfer window.

“More staff? Good question,” he said. “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.”