Newcastle United's sixth summer arrival confirmed after Paul Mitchell swoop
Newcastle United have confirmed the appointment of James Bunce as the club’s new performance director.
Bunce is the first major appointment made at Newcastle since the arrival of Paul Mitchell as sporting director. Mitchell and Bunce previously worked together at AS Monaco between 2020 and 2023.
Bunce has over 17 years of experience in professional sport with his new role as Newcastle’s performance director being to support the club’s performance, medical, sports science, nutrition and psychology teams. His role will encompass Newcastle’s first team, women’s team and academy.
The former Monaco director of performance also worked with Mitchell at Southampton, where he was the club’s head of athletic performance before joining the Premier League itself as head of elite performance to support all clubs.
Bunce then worked as US Soccer’s first ever director of high performance in 2017 before switching to Monaco in 2020. His focus on injury prevention could make him a welcome addition at Newcastle after the club suffered an unprecedented injury crisis during the 2023-24 campaign.
Bunce is Newcastle’s sixth major arrival this summer after players Lewis Hall, Lloyd Kelly, Odysseas Vlachodimos, John Ruddy and sporting director Mitchell.
Following his appointment, Bunce told the club website: “I am proud and excited to join such a historic and ambitious club as its new performance director.
“Newcastle United and the city are going through an exciting time of growth and development and I cannot wait to start contributing to the club’s future successes.
“My role will be to ensure that we push in every area of performance and medicine to optimise the health, fitness and wellbeing of players, ultimately ensuring they are available to perform at the highest level, week in week out.”
Newcastle chief executive officer Darren Eales added: “James is an accomplished and innovative performance director and we are delighted he has chosen to join us.
“He has dedicated his career to helping players to be at their optimum levels, bringing a range of departments and services together to provide the best possible foundations for elite performance.
“James will be of great support to the talented players and staff we already have in place, and his strong working relationship with Paul Mitchell will be an asset to us as we continue to strive to be best in class.”