Steve Nickson talks led to Newcastle United transfer rethink

Take the past week or so. An underwhelming and brief pre-season campaign had ended with an unseen defeat to Stoke City at an empty St James’s Park – and there was precious little enthusiasm ahead of the new campaign.

The optimism of a few months ago, when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) agreed to buy United, had long gone.

And what was left was a sense that this season would be more of the same – only behind closed doors due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The club, it had been hoped, would be in different hands by now.

Yet last night owner Mike Ashley was sat in the directors’ box, front and centre, at the London Stadium for Newcastle’s season-opener against West Ham United. This hasn’t been the summer of change we all thought was coming following the £300million agreement between Amanda Staveley, backed by PIF, and Ashley.

However, there was a significant change behind the scenes. The club went for British and Irish players with Premier League experience.

“I work very closely with (head of recruitment) Steve Nickson, and there are one or two he put forward to me,” said head coach Steve Bruce this week.

"Under the circumstances, we both agreed that, especially now with the way it is, we need people who are a bit proven, and can walk into the team and improve us. For a lot of people in the Premier League it takes time to adapt, to get used to playing in England, to get used to the food, to try and speak the language.

“We decided to target people who can come in and make a fist of it straight away.”

Too often at this club there’s been a disconnect between what a United manager has wanted and what he’s been given by a club which has been all too often preoccupied with a player’s re-sale value.

So this week was all-important, and the club had to get it right. Callum Wilson, Ryan Fraser and Jamal Lewis arrived at St James’s Park – and the gloom that had settled on the club started to lift. Signings can do that on Tyneside.

Wilson is just the striker the team was crying out for last season as Joelinton laboured up front on his own, and Newcastle’s new No.13 got the season up and running with the club’s first goal against West Ham.

Midfielder Jeff Hendrick, an astute free transfer, made it 2-0 with a goal on his debut.

And a smiling Ashley – who had taken aim at the Premier League over the takeover in midweek – was off his feet clapping the players off the pitch at the final whistle.

Bruce’s side had been energetic and combative. They’d bossed key areas, and Wilson had been a threat in and around the box all evening.

The only downside was that United supporters – who normally sell out the London Stadium away end – could only watch the game at home on TV. They saw a promising performance lead to a very positive result, but Premier League football just isn’t an occasion, or a spectacle, without them.

Still, what a week.

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