Shearer gives it large about Newcastle's plight

Alan Shearer is not slow to express his opinions on Match of the Day and now he has told The Athletic that his beloved Newcastle United are drifting.   ‘As a team, they’ve gone stale and as a club, they’ve stalled, robbing them of the extraordinary momentum that was fuel for a couple of years. That rate of progress was never sustainable in this frustrating world of financial restriction — don’t get me started — and it was never going to be a journey free of potholes, but as a columnist and fan, it does feel like the great, post-takeover “project” has reached a crossroads.

Off it, there are legitimate questions to be asked and how about these for starters: what’s happening with the chief executive?     What’s happening with the stadium? What’s happening with the training ground? What’s happening with new signings? In turn, Newcastle would have some legitimate answers, like due process, not rushing huge decisions and the millstone of profit and sustainability rules (PSR), but the overall effect feels like drag, delay, an anchor.

The big concern is that all of these things are connected. This is the reality of any club’s ecosystem; excuses eat into its culture. As a pundit, one of my jobs is to analyse individual matches, which I did on Match of the Day for the Brentford game and it was ragged and full of error. It was unacceptable. Taken in context with Liverpool, it was slightly different. Taken in context with the whole season, the entire year, something far more complex emerges.

You will understand where this is leading. I’m not the first person to point out that Newcastle haven’t signed a first-team-ready player for two consecutive transfer windows, partially because they have hit their limits with PSR 

Newcastle would be winning things, they were told. There would be investment in the team, there would be a new training ground and, in time, a modernised stadium and, over the first year or two, growth was undeniable. Their facilities were improved, there was a splurge on new players, they got to Wembley, finished in the top four. It was a rush.

More than three years down the line, that progress is less easy to explain. Newcastle are growing their commercial and marketing departments — they are unrecognisable in that sense — but their footballing story is not so clear. Players have short careers and the biggest, most ambitious clubs do not go two windows without strengthening. And they do not go two seasons without Europe, which is now a distinct possibility.

There may be perfectly logical reasons for it, but St James’ is largely unchanged and a new training ground remains an aspiration. For this team, for this era of players in the here and now, what does Newcastle’s project actually mean? What are they playing for beyond money, pride, themselves or whatever else? Is this a blip, a brief pause? 

Darren Eales, the chief executive, is stepping down due to ill health, but coming after the departures of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, the co-owners, which in turn came after the departure of Dan Ashworth as sporting director — whatever happened to him? — and his subsequent replacement by Paul Mitchell, it means there has been a huge churn at the top of the club. That has an effect.

Whatever else, Staveley and Ghodoussi were very present and very visible. They were brilliant at front-of-house stuff, close to Howe and the team and it felt like they brought a drive, a vision. Newcastle needed that after the cold, aloof Ashley era. But who is selling the vision now? Is anybody explaining it inside the dressing room, let alone to the rest of us?

Newcastle is a black and white city but when it comes to its football club it has traditionally been one or the other; black or white, good or bad, momentum or chaos. Give it 10 days and three brilliant victories and I’ll be singing a different tune but, as things stand, it feels like inconsistency is baked in. They have ignored so many potential turning points already this season, staggering beyond them and into another brick wall.

To get back on track, there has to be a collective will. They have to remember the unity of purpose they surfed on after the takeover. However good they might think they are, players must run to exhaustion every game. Howe must find a way to get past Leicester and Brentford, because that keeps the season alive and quietens the noise. Whatever it means for trading, directors cannot let another window slip by. In the summer, they must sell big and go again.

And above them, the people in charge of it all — PIF — should come out and set the tone. Ultimately, it’s the owners who have the final say on big infrastructure projects, who can press the button, who can explain and then prove that drift is temporary but the vision endures.’

A fan comments: ‘PSR is doing exactly what it was designed to do. No, not prevent clubs from unsustainable spending and jeopardising their future, but to protect the revenue of the so called 'big 6'.  Apparently it's perfectly fine to leverage billions of pounds of debt against your club/asset but if you're a cash rich owner who wants to put in your own money then it's suddenly a huge issue. It is obviously anti-competition in that respect and in literally no other industry would it be legal.’