The New Newcastle United

 

Over the last two windows, Newcastle United embarked on a huge rebuild following last October's takeover and to date, most of the transfer dealings have been a great success. Additionally as of writing this, Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that Newcastle are set to sign Alexander Isak in what would be a club record fee, with personal terms agreed and a fee set at reportedly over £60 million. This blog post will be analysing Newcastle's progress since the takeover and their transfer business.

Since Eddie Howe's appointment last year, Newcastle have gone strength to strength, and despite being winless and 19th in the league when appointed, Howe's Newcastle side finished the season in such a rich vein of form, that if the season ran from January until May, they would've finished top 4. In the first three games of this season, Newcastle have remained unbeaten including a massive 3-3 draw against defending champions Manchester City. Howe is already a huge fan favourite too with one fan saying that "he gets the club and the city, we love him". 

Newcastle's core has been replaced and upgraded over the past two transfer windows, with 7 first-team players coming in, all of them being improvements on what they had previously. Arguably the best and most impactful of all incomings has been Bruno Guimaraes in midfield, he has been immense, not only establishing himself as the best player at Newcastle but one of the best midfielders in the league, even attracting the interest of Real Madrid according to reports. Last season Bruno made 17 appearances for Newcastle with 5 goals and 1 assist and averaged a 7.25 rating on SofaScore for those 17 games. What has made Bruno so impactful for Newcastle is that he plays as a true box-to-box midfielder, SmarterScout emphasizes this as they scored his attacking output as 76/100, however his game is good defensively too as seen from his stats this season as he on average wins 8.3 duels per game which is 63%. Having this impact allows Newcastle to be a pressing team and to play more offensive and forward-thinking, as they have players who are both tenacious and can defend further up the pitch while also being great on the ball. Bruno, therefore, is the driving force behind the change in style as in the attacking third and on the ball too he is so impressive, this season averaging 86% accurate passes and completing 2.3 dribbles per game, so much of what Newcastle do well hinges on Bruno and costing just £36 million, he was a steal.

Defensively since Howe took over, Newcastle have become very solid thanks to the additions of Nick Pope in goal and Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Matt Targett and Sven Botman across the defence who have all been impressive since coming into the club, especially Trippier who is established already as captain and leads the Toon side remarkably. Trippier's experience playing at the top level made him a great coup for Newcastle, also his set-piece ability has already been of benefit as seen last weekend against Manchester City as he scored an amazing free-kick.

Allan Saint-Maximin is a player who was at Newcastle before the takeover and is probably the only player from that period good enough to be a regular in the near future considering the club's lofty ambitions. Saint-Maximin has started off this season really well averaging a 7.57 rating on SofaScore, thanks to his assists and better-than-ever passing and link-up play, along with his trademarked dribbling ability, completing 3.7 dribbles per game on average. Saint-Maximin is (despite the improvements across the pitch) the player that Newcastle looks at in order to inspire magic in the attacking third, and opposition teams know this. Take the Manchester City game for example Kyle Walker and Rodri would often double up on Saint-Maximin as they knew Miguel Almiron on the other side was not as much of a threat (Not that they were successful).

Due to the issue of over-reliance on Saint-Maximin at times I think the arrival of Alexander Isak will have a huge effect on the effectiveness of the Newcastle attack, giving Saint-Maximin more space to play in. Newcastle needed a new striker too, as Callum Wilson never manages to last a full season fit, and Chris Wood just doesn't fit the style of football Newcastle are looking to play anymore. While Newcastle are probably paying over the odds for Isak and many fans have questioned his ability as a goal-scoring striker due to only netting 6 goals in 26 starts last season, it is only 2 seasons since he managed 17 in 30 starts while being only 20 at the time. Now 22 still being young, Isak has plenty of time to come good and realise his potential especially if he is allowed to grow as the centrepiece of a star-studded Newcastle side.

This Newcastle side looks very impressive and I don't think a top 4 finish is out of the question, especially with the sub-par start to the season from the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and West Ham. however, I do think Eddie Howe and the fans would be more than happy with achieving any level of European football, with a view to building and improving on it next season.