Alan Shearer now asks all the right questions on what’s (not?) happening at Newcastle United | OneFootball

A really good piece from Alan Shearer on Wednesday morning.

The Newcastle United legend has done something (see below) for The Athletic.

Not just looking at the latest result and/or performance.

More looking at the underlying situation at Newcastle United, relevant factors, especially off the pitch ones.

Which then obviously feed into what happens on the pitch, indeed, they are key really. Certainly in the longer-term.

Here are just a couple of outtakes from this excellent Alan Shearer piece, well worth reading the whole thing over at The Athletic.

Alan Shearer writing for The Athletic – 11 December 2024:

‘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.

Drift, stale, stalled; those words were synonymous with the tail-end of Mike Ashley’s ownership. Twelfth in the Premier League was Newcastle’s finishing position in 2020-21, the last full season before Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) controversially bought the club and promised to make them “number one” and it is where they sit now. To suggest nothing has changed would be ludicrous and wholly false, but the adrenaline rush has given way to a hangover.

On the pitch, it feels like a huge spell of games are approaching for Eddie Howe and his players, who have put themselves bang under pressure with some poor results. Inconsistency is rife across a tight division, but big players do not perform as brilliantly as Newcastle did in their 3-3 draw with Liverpool and then so dreadfully as they did in losing 4-2 at Brentford. I sincerely hope there has been some soul-searching in the dressing room this week.

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.’

‘I don’t have any doubts about Howe still being the right man for Newcastle. He can and should lead the team forward. After what he has done, not just pulling the team away from relegation and then straight into the Champions League, but in the way he has set standards and built an identity, he deserves time and patience. He needs support, because that identity is blurring.’