Newcastle United blueprint unveiled to close gap with Premier League elite on and off the pitch | OneFootball

Eddie Howe and the new / current Newcastle United owners had a monumental task on,, when arriving at St James’ Park in autumn 2021.

What they inherited from Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce was a total mess.

A Premier League club and team / squad only in name.

Relegation looked all but assured and a similar desperate situation off the pitch, the result of a near decade and a half of Mike Ashley neglect and asset stripping, something made all the worse by a succession (with rare exceptions) of not up to the job patsies / stooges employed as managers.

The progress made in these past 18 months has been…outstanding.

However, Newcastle United still needing to do a lot more to make up for so many years of neglect and Mike Ashley stripping out all the benefits for himself. Especially when it comes to competing year on year with those at the very top.

Asked about closing the gap with Manchester United and the rest of the Premier League elite, on and off the pitch, Eddie Howe laying out this Newcastle United blueprint:

“I think that you can buck the trend.

“Of course you can, it is possible.

“It is not easy to do [but possible].

“I go back to my earlier coaching experiences [with Bournemouth] and we were always trying to buck the trend.

“We were going up against clubs with far superior budgets to ours for years and years.

“When you say how?

“Team spirit, the togetherness, implementing a plan…

“Hopefully everyone is on the same page and working harder than everybody else.

“That is the simple blueprint that I have always tried to use.

“When you get to this elite level, as we are, it gets harder and harder.

“[You have to] Believe in the squad we have and we will give everything to try to do that.”

The Newcastle United Head Coach asked about how to compete off the pitch with Manchester United (and the other Premier League clubs at the very top)?

“There are ambitions for the club [Newcastle United] to grow the income.

“It is vital that we do this.

“As with Financial Fair Play we are going to be restricted, depending on our income.

“So I know that is the challenge that everybody at the club is trying to find the answers to.”