Newcastle United remarkable £270m transfer U-turn as 'signing of the summer' becomes clear
Judge Newcastle United in September, not July - that’s what we were told amid the transfer chaos.
‘Trust the process.’
Newcastle United supporters - and journalists - have been told to do it plenty of times over the summer. The only issue was, there wasn’t much to trust.
A 12th-place finish in the Premier League followed by the departures of several key players led to uncertainty, and any optimism started to become blind faith, or even dread. Supporters were being asked to get behind and believe in a project that, from the outside, appeared to have lost all momentum.
Now there is something different - there is evidence. A £270million summer transfer spend on eight fresh faces, a new exciting head coach and confirmation of a £190million world-class training complex has turned Newcastle’s summer nightmare into a vibrant fresh start.
The £51million deadline day arrival of ‘top target’ Matias Fernandez-Pardo was the final flourish on a summer Newcastle have somehow managed to salvage. Nico Gonzalez’s arrival from Manchester City was the statement signing that saw the momentum start to swing back in Newcastle’s favour; a promising start to the new season on the pitch boosted that.
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NUFC’s signing of the summer
But the most important addition of the summer came several weeks earlier. Matthias Jaissle has brought a new attitude, new ideas and new energy to a club that had become stale by the end of last season. Eddie Howe knew it, so did the players.
This summer has represented a total reset for Newcastle. The club were methodical in their appointment of Jaissle, spending a lot of time identifying the right profile of head coach to take things forward.
One senior source at the club admitted ‘there are no guarantees, but we feel in a good place with the identity we want’.
And that has been felt in the squad too. Not only have Newcastle added eight new signings this summer, but there have been signings from within, with Anthony Elanga and Yoane Wissa in particular given a new lease of life under Jaissle after difficult debut campaigns.
Wissa put it perfectly after Newcastle's impressive start, praising Jaissle's intensity and precision before stating: “I think he is the best signing of Newcastle so far.”
And that’s the key. Because this is no longer simply about replacing Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon or Bruno Guimaraes, this is about recognising that change was needed and embracing it.
New excitement, new energy
The excitement is back at Newcastle United - it almost certainly won’t be perfect, but that’s okay. The process that many doubted over the summer can only truly be judged in time in time. But now the window has closed, everything at least makes sense.
The summer was messy. For weeks, it looked like Newcastle were allowing the foundations of the project to erode. But optimism remained internally even as the external doubts grew louder and more targets went elsewhere.
Newcastle’s final month of the transfer window represented an impressive turnaround in fortunes and feeling. It has given supporters something they did not have before - a reason to believe again.
An encouraging start does not suddenly make Newcastle contenders. Nor does a handful of signings erase the mistakes of the past year or so.
But ‘trust the process’ no longer feels like something supporters are being asked to do on blind faith. They can actually see the process now.