Guardian writers’ predicted position: 14th (NB: this is not necessarily Louise Taylor’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: 15th
Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker): 2000-1
At their best under Alan Pardew, on those all too rare good days when European competition felt almost within touching distance, Newcastle United were undeniably exciting to watch.
Pacy, powerful and sharp on the counterattack, they promised nearly as many thrills as a typical episode of television’s Homeland. All too soon, though, Demba Ba defected, Yohan Cabaye was sold, relegation dalliances beckoned and Tynesiders turned against Pardew. Yet all along, even during the season they finished fifth, something was missing. Things rarely felt entirely satisfying.
For far too many years now Newcastle have been, at best, two dimensional. Poor at both dictating the tempo and retaining possession, while never being too hot at ‘playing between the lines’, they have consistently struggled to control games. Steve McClaren’s long-term challenge is to raise the tone to the point where his team are more Prisoners of War than Homeland.
The brilliant, most definitely three-dimensional, Israeli series (also known as Hatufim) on which Homeland is based, is big on the sort of subtlety, emotional intelligence, wonderful understatement and breathtaking changes of pace sometimes lacking in its American successor.
McClaren hopes to eventually introduce a broadly similar sort of sophistication to Newcastle’s play but the former England coach is beginning from a very low base. Realistically, it may be quite some time before the team are capable of passing opponents off the pitch, let alone showing off seamlessly inventive powers of positional rotation.
Following Pardew’s departure for Crystal Palace last January and John Carver’s near calamitous interregnum, Newcastle were extremely fortunate not to be relegated last May. The shock of this closest of close shaves seems to have finally persuaded Mike Ashley, the owner, of the need to restock his squad, of the importance of speculating to accumulate.
So far almost £35m has been invested on Georginio Wijnaldum, the Holland attacking midfielder who joins from PSV Eindhoven, Aleksandar Mitrovic, a young Serbia striker who proved so prolific for Anderlecht last season and Chancel Mbemba, a highly talented Congolese centre-half also recruited from Anderlecht.
It represents a promising start but McClaren remains in urgent need of another defender and an additional striker. Ideally that forward would be QPR’s Charlie Austin. Negotiations between the two clubs are supposedly ongoing but Austin’s long-mooted move from Loftus Road has been the subject of so much haggling it would be no surprise were it not to go through until 6pm on 1 September.
With Mitrovic appearing the sort of finisher who craves high-calibre crosses, a new winger would also come in handy. Equally, there is much potentially disruptive dead wood to be cleared out before the end of August.
Big on the concept of developing “collective leadership”, McClaren wants to restrict his first-team pool to 18-20 high-quality individuals with the surplus preferably sold on or loaned out by the start of September. Despite managerial noises to the contrary, few will be overly surprised if Fabricio Coloccini, the erstwhile captain and key centre-half, is among those relocated. Papiss Cissé’s future appears similarly uncertain.
Pardew and Carver lamented the lack of “leadership” among a squad a little light in the “mental-strength” department over recent seasons. Accordingly, it will be interesting to see whether McClaren’s attempts to tighten discipline – players have been sent home from training after arriving five minutes later and swearing is now banned in all departments – helps foster a much needed spirit of collective responsibility. The appointment of Steve Black as the new motivational guru can only help.
Tactically, last season’s deep-sitting defence and long balls are being slowly replaced by more thoughtful passing from the back and a slightly higher defensive line as Newcastle attempt to press opponents 10 yards further up the pitch. In terms of philosophy, the new manager seems much more in sync with both Graham Carr, the chief scout and effective director of football, and many season ticket holders than Pardew. Even so, the pursuit of long-term gain may well involve short-term pain.
If it is a mistake to read too much into some disappointing pre-season results, McClaren looks concerned by the number of goals his defence have conceded in recent weeks. Footballers, past and present, regularly queue up to explain what an excellent, innovative tracksuit coach he is but such ability promises to be fully tested by Newcastle’s alarmingly vulnerable containment department. Given this weakness, it will be no surprise should he and Ian Cathro, the bright young Scottish coach newly recruited from Valencia, attempt to camouflage such structural flaws by setting Newcastle up in different ways against assorted opponents.
Further forward intrigue lies in identifying precisely where McClaren will play Moussa Sissoko, whether there will be room for both Wijnaldum and Siem de Jong in his starting XI and whether he can help Rolando Aarons avoid further hamstring injuries while fulfilling his undoubted left-wing potential.
Numerous other questions also require answers but Carver’s successor can only pray he avoids a repeat of the four successive defeats which, more than a decade ago, marked the opening of his reign as Middlesbrough’s manager. The subsequent capture of the League Cup – the first trophy in Boro’s history – and a run to the Uefa Cup final ensured Teesside would remain a safe haven following his England debacle. The battle hardening involved in that salutary experience promises to serve a manager who recovered sufficiently to lead Twente to their first Eredivisie title in the Netherlands, well on Tyneside.
The Newcastle job can be one of football’s more toxic poisoned chalices but particularly post England, McClaren is tougher than many peers. After facing the wrath of an entire nation he should be better equipped than most to cope with Ashley. Similarly the fact he has kept his family home on Teesside since leaving Boro means the 54-year-old has a potentially invaluable understanding of the north-east psyche.
So far so good but McClaren’s mission to capture the hearts and minds of disillusioned Newcastle fans faces a potential obstacle in the shape of Ashley’s enthusiasm for developing an apparent “preferred media partnership” with the Mirror. This attempt to limit rival publications’ access to the club and the players seems to have dismayed a man whose open-door media policy at Twente paid rich dividends.
The shame is that instead of following the example of, among other leading clubs, Manchester City and cottoning on to the reality that UK newspaper websites are visited increasingly by overseas readers, Newcastle have waded straight into the intensely parochial north-east circulation war between the Mirror and the Sun.
Rather than realising they need to grasp every opportunity to grow their brand internationally and, quite possibly, attract blue-chip sponsors possessing worldwide presence, the club have left themselves looking small time and behind the zeitgeist. It may appear trivial next to what actually happens on the pitch but should McClaren somehow persuade Ashley his long-standing ambition to “monetise” the media is short sighted and counter-productive, the job would surely become a little easier.
At least Ashley and Lee Charnley, the managing director, have realised that too many supporters were becoming dangerously disconnected from the club. In an attempt to remedy things McClaren has addressed a fans forum and the doors of St James’ Park are being unlocked for an open day when everyone is welcome to devote a morning of the school holidays to watching the squad train on the pitch.
Such charm offensives can go quite a long way to helping eliminate the festering unhappiness which helped create last season’s sullen mood on Gallowgate – not to mention the anonymous website, sackpardew.com – but they can never represent the whole solution. That will involve Newastle playing reasonably attractively and appearing in with a chance of meeting their target of a top-eight finish by the time Homeland returns to Channel 4 this autumn. As for the long awaited third series of Prisoners of War, well according to its creator, Gideon Raff, it remains a work in progress. McClaren knows the feeling …
