‘A sour taste’ – inside a summer like no other in Newcastle’s history

“Until the very end,”

Before a draining window at Newcastle United finally closed, this was the mantra behind the scenes.

And with good reason.

The result of Newcastle’s sale of Alexander Isak to Liverpool for a record-breaking £125 million and the signing of Yoane Wissa from Brentford was a breathless finale, which proved to be so.

Newcastle’s signing of a dependable Premier League player in Wissa relieves fans on Tyneside, who has never played for a club outside of Germany.

But, after holding firm for so long, Newcastle have also lost one of the best strikers in the world to the champions on deadline day.

When Isak was bouncing up and down in a celebratory huddle at St James’ Park after Newcastle won qualification on the final day of last season, it seemed like an unthinkable prospect for outsiders.

Of course, losing Isak was never in the original plan.

Instead of selling their best player to a team they defeated in the Carabao Cup final back in March, Newcastle wants to one day compete with Liverpool for the biggest trophies.

In a statement, last month, Newcastle did not even foresee the conditions of sale being met as the saga dragged on weeks after Liverpool’s opening £110m bid was rejected.

This player had three years left on his contract, but giving in on the last day could have set a precedent.

The club was already in the dark due to Isak’s absence. Could the wantaway Swede really have been reintegrated if he did not get the move he desired in the final throes of the window? Was there a chance that if he remained unmoved, his value would only decline further?

After the 25-year-old sat out the campaign’s first few weeks and made an explosive statement that “change is in the best interests of everyone,” it seemed like there would be a long way back for Isak with the fanbase.

It was just last week that Newcastle fan Ian Cuthbertson vowed he would “never accept him again” while Mal Colledge said the “whole thing just leaves a sour taste”.

Suzanna Armstrong, a fellow supporter, said, “No one is irreplaceable.”

However, Debra Woodall acknowledged that it would be “hard to replace him” as Isak helped Newcastle end a 70-year wait for a significant domestic trophy wearing a commemorative home shirt.

“Hopefully they find someone who puts the ball in the back of the net”, she said.

No one scored more non-penalty goals in the Premier League last season than Wissa, and the club believes Woltemade’s qualities will help them reach the top flight in the future.

After Brentford rejected two previous bids, Newcastle’s interest in Wissa was well documented, so sources close to the deal even disputed that it was taking place last week.

They said that Stuttgart would not sell – regardless of the buying club – following Bayern Munich’s previous failed pursuit.

For context, Woltemade’s flight from Stuttgart to Tyneside for his medical was scheduled at the time.

In contrast to well-known bids for Hugo Ekitike, Benjamin Sesko, and Joao Pedro, Newcastle had acted so quickly and secretly that details only eventually surfaced after the deal was done.

From the outside, the £69m move happened rapidly. Even the participants even described it as being “very quick.” Following a string of setbacks in his search for a center-forward, head coach Eddie Howe had been anticipating this for a while.

“Although it seems quick to you guys, it’s not quick to us”, Howe said. Because you are in other people’s hands, it’s labored and slow.

That expression could just as easily have been used to describe the entire window.

Howe had previously labelled last summer as the most difficult of his career after Newcastle struggled to make a major signing and dashed to sell Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh to avoid a breach of profit and sustainability rules (PSR).

Newcastle had set out to do business early.

However, it came to the point where they could have assembled a formidable five-a-side team of adversaries.

For instance, James Trafford, according to what it is known, was “super excited” about joining Newcastle before the negotiations with Burnley stalled over the fee.

Manchester City went on to activate their buyback clause and matched Newcastle’s offer for their former goalkeeper, who chose to return to Etihad Stadium.

A new theme started to emerge.

Even though Benjamin Sesko’s camp described Newcastle as a “great club with great people” and said they were “a great club with great people,” those closest to the striker previously did not believe it was the “right time” to relocate to St James’ Park when the club first expressed an interest in the club in 2022.

History repeated itself once again last month when Sesko opted to join what he called a “historical club” in Manchester United.

Of course, Newcastle has its own tradition, but in the first few months of the window, they had a difficult time challenging the established order for such players.

These clubs have higher income streams than their predecessors, according to Joao Pedro, who was also a target when he watched Chelsea win titles growing up.

Manchester United (£364.7m) and Chelsea (£337.8m) were among five Premier League sides who splashed out more on salaries than Newcastle generated in revenue (£320.3m) in their most recently published accounts from 2023-24.

In the same time period, Newcastle’s wage bill was eighth highest, and the club became even more determined to sign players who were “desperate” to move after a number of setbacks this summer.

Dan Burn, Kieran Trippier, and Bruno Guimaraes, who were the club’s most successful signings under Howe, were praised for their fitting roles when they arrived at the club in deep relegation trouble in 2022.

Three of Newcastle’s most expensive additions this summer – Woltemade, Wissa and Anthony Elanga – did not think twice once they learned of the club’s interest.

Malick Thiaw also didn’t need much convincing to leave AC Milan for Newcastle.

Before his £35 million move to Germany was approved, Thiaw was a few weeks into a training camp in the Lake District when the topic of Newcastle emerged.

Paul Winsper, a high performance consultant, who previously worked for Newcastle, was on hand to offer his thoughts.

“We all resided in the same house,” said Winsper. Come on, we joked about it. Join Newcastle! ‘

He inquired, “What’s it like?” I said, “Astonished.”

“I lived in the US for 16 years and I had always had this yearning to come back to the North East and be back in my roots.

This was one of a series of deals Newcastle agreed without a sporting director or CEO.

CEO Darren Eales gave his notice last autumn after being diagnosed with a persistent form of blood cancer, while sporting director Paul Mitchell left the club in June.

So it was up to co-owner Jamie Reuben and assistant head of recruitment Andy Howe to assume additional responsibilities.

Given the upheaval at boardroom level, and the challenging start to the window, recruiting six first-team players felt like a distant prospect at one point.

And Eddie Howe was the first to acknowledge that Newcastle made the most of the situation by avoiding a sporting director and CEO.

In the upcoming windows, filling these positions will be crucial, and Newcastle intends to do so. They have already hired Sudarshan Gopaladesikan, who will report to Mitchell’s replacement and head the club’s football data operations.

Mitchell’s assertion that Newcastle’s recruitment processes were” not fit for purpose “understandably dominated headlines a year ago, but he also made a nuanced point about how clubs who were even more data-informed prospered last summer.

Newcastle did not want to lose their director of football intelligence, and it is understood that the club’s pursuit of Gopaladesikan began last fall.

However, it was quite interesting that Newcastle were willing to wait until July to find a “technical director,” as stated by Playermaker’s vice-president of sports performance Steve Barrett.

” He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, “Barrett said”. His game is always piqued by his enthusiasm and enthusiasm. He perfectly embodies what Newcastle stands for.

Gopaladesikan is only in his early thirties, but the American mathematician has already had spells at Atalanta and Benfica, and he also worked with Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund during his time as a product manager at Microsoft.

This seems like a timely appointment given the fierce competition Newcastle faced for top targets, even though Gopaladesikan’s extensive role will only be one thing.

Where does Newcastle move forward with this summer, then?

That question will be answered on the field in the coming weeks and months as Howe’s side attempt to fight on four fronts following the additions of Woltemade, Wissa, Elanga, Thiaw, Jacob Ramsey and Aaron Ramsdale.

But what about off-it?

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire compared the sale of Isak to the £100 million deal that Aston Villa purchased from Manchester City in 2021 for Jack Grealish.

” Newcastle were out of the woods from a PSR point of view, but this will certainly help them satisfy the Uefa squad cost rules because player sale profits go into the equation when you’re working out your 70% wages-to-revenue line, “Maguire said”. They will be able to make wise reinvestments.

They won’t have that much financial freedom when they were forced to use a few windows to do nothing for a few months. You don’t want that repeating, especially when the club are ambitious and aspirational”.