Badly mistaken on Saudi Arabia PIF and Eddie Howe | OneFootball

The Saudi Arabia PIF took control of Newcastle United on 7 October 2021.

Then 32 days later Eddie Howe was announced as the new man in charge of team affairs.

In 17 days time, 8 November 2024 will mark the three year anniversary of Eddie Howe hooking up with a Saudi Arabia PIF operated Newcastle United.

It has been an ‘interesting’ three years for us all as Newcastle United fans.

A decade and a half of Mike Ashley having made it a grim and all but pointless experience of supporting NUFC. Somebody who was only interested in increasing his own personal wealth at the expense of the football club, putting down zero foundations to build a bigger, better and more successful club for the future.

You would have to be naive in the extreme to believe the Saudi Arabia PIF and Reuben family have got involved with Newcastle United, for anything other than their own benefit.

However, the big difference for the fans, is that these owners will only get what they want, via a successful Newcastle United on and off the pitch.

A win/win if you want. The club succeeds and both fans and owners are happy.

Whereas with Mike Ashley, it was heads he won, tails the fans lost.

Eddie Howe was the first and biggest appointment by the new Saudi Arabia PIF controlled football club.

The narrative for pretty much everybody, whether it is media, football pundits, the fans, is that Eddie Howe is incredibly lucky to have Saudi Arabia PIF backing him.

The reality for me though, is that Saudi Arabia PIF are the ones who are very lucky to have Eddie Howe.

Yes, the Saudi Arabia PIF and Reuben family have put hundreds more millions into Newcastle United since taking over, over and above the purchase price. However, this is absolutely normal in both football clubs and other businesses. An ailing, failing, business (football club) that has suffered from lack of investment and care and attention for 15 years, one ran with a total lack of ambition, investors know they have to pump cash in, if they are to have any chance of turning it around. Just look at the likes of Brighton, Aston Villa and more recently Nottingham Forest, how much their respective owners have put into their clubs.

The thing is at Newcastle United, the money that has helped pay for the transfer fees and wages for new signings under Eddie Howe, has seen the NUFC Head Coach to be the one responsible for increasing the value of Newcastle United far in excess of the money put in by Saudi Arabia PIF and the Reubens.

As I say, it is they who should be massively grateful for the incredible job Eddie Howe has done, not the other way round.

Yet I hear both media and Newcastle United fans now saying that Eddie Howe had better watch out, that the Saudi Arabia PIF won’t put up with ‘failure’ and he could be soon replaced.

Funny how these people who would happily think the Saudi Arabia PIF would be doing the right thing getting rid of Eddie Howe if results don’t swiftly improve, don’t then answer the next part of the equation. Who exactly would/could come in and do a better job than Eddie Howe with the resources at his disposal?

Eight of Saturday’s matchday squad against Brighton were players Eddie Howe inherited and six of the eight played in the game – Schar, Joelinton, Willock, Longstaff, Almiron, Jacob Murphy, Krafth, Lewis Miley.

Yet to hear the way many of our fans and journalists and pundits go on, you would think Saudi Arabia PIF had gifted Eddie Howe expensive superstars all over the pitch and anything less than success would be total failure.

The Eddie Howe record since Saudi Arabia PIF controlled Newcastle United hired him:

2021/22 Not just saving NUFC from a mid-season relegation situation that looked hopeless, Eddie Howe in the entire second half of that season, delivered the third best form in the Premier League over the final 19 matches.

2022/23 Eddie Howe taking Newcastle to a top four finish (first in 20 years) and a cup final (first in 24 years).

2023/24 Eddie Howe’s Newcastle playing Champions League group football (for the first time in 21 years) and despite start summer 2023 signing Tonali’s suspension and the worst injury season in the entire history of the football club, NUFC still finished seventh and only eight points off top four.

2024/25 Ten games played in all competitions, five wins, three draws and two defeats. Saturday seeing the first defeat at St James’ Park in over nine months.

All managers (and head coaches) will eventually see their futures decided by results on the pitch, however, I find it bizarre that anybody would honestly think that Eddie Howe doesn’t deserve at least the rest of this season to get Newcastle United in good shape. For both this season and moving forward.

I repeat, our Saudi Arabia PIF controlled club are the ones who are very lucky to have Eddie Howe, not the other way round.

There are exceptions but major clubs getting rid of managers in mid-season rarely works out for the best anyway. Most of the best run clubs will wait until the end of a season before making a change, as there is a far bigger and better pool of potential candidates you can attract. Newcastle United very lucky with the likes of Rafa Benitez and Eddie Howe, that they were available and able to come in mid-season. Very rarely, including/especially at Newcastle United, that this proves to be the case. That a manager comes in as a replacement during a season and proves a long-term success.

I think the reality is that Eddie Howe has made a rod for his own back. Ironically, that second half of the season form in 2021/22 and the full 2022/23 season form, now used against him!

It appears that now, so many people want to believe that the form shown back then was just the normal way of things, what could and should have been expected, rather than Eddie Howe working minor miracles.

Indeed, I think taking into account what was thrown at him last season, especially in terms of injury and suspension, Eddie Howe did unbelievably well to deliver a season where Newcastle finished only eight points off top four. The 60 points last season had only been bettered once at NUFC since the 2022/23 Premier League season, 21 years earlier.

What is Newcastle United’s natural position now, based on the financial (PSR especially) state of  various clubs, the money that has been spent on wages and transfer fees?

Never mind all the other advantages on and off the pitch over Newcastle United they have been handed due to Ashley’s wasted 15 years, surely nobody can argue that any of the ‘big six’, are anything but more financially powerful in supplying funds for transfer fees and wages, as compared to Newcastle United.

The reality is as well, with the way things currently stand, these usual six with all their in-built advantages, are actually arguably drawing ever further away, as Newcastle United try to belatedly catch up financially.

The thing is, it isn’t just those obvious six either, that Newcastle United are trying to compete with.

From the 2019/20 season onwards, Aston Villa have spent £655m on new signings (all figures via Transfermarkt), in that same time period Newcastle United have spent £538m on new signings.

Whilst since getting promoted together in 2017, Newcastle United have spent some £625m on new signings, compared to Brighton spending £617m on new signings.

All of these clubs also had far better young player recruitment set-ups than Newcastle United, thanks once again to Ashley’s decade and a half of not allowing a penny to be spent that he wasn’t forced to.

This latest summer transfer window, whilst Newcastle United spent £56m on new signings, Brighton splashed out £192m and Villa £146m.

Forest have spent fortunes since promotion, Ipswich have ambitious owners and they had a net spend of some £104m this summer, all clubs that get access to Premier League level money, spend cash. Look at Bournemouth on 11,ooo crowds, they had a £40m new Brazil international striker playing against Newcastle in our first away match of the season.

Of course we should have expectations of Eddie Howe delivering results. However, those expectations have to be given perspective.

Thanks to the signings he has been responsible for from January 2022 onwards and the work he has done with them and the players he inherited, I do think that Eddie Howe is more than capable of still delivering a top six finish.

However, if finishing top eight or nine, that wouldn’t be a disaster in my eyes, especially when it comes to the resources he has had to work with, including the players he inherited.

If say Newcastle United did finish ninth, I would still be relatively disappointed, after all, competing higher up the table is addictive.

However, the relative finances and PSR positions at this moment in time, give the ‘big six’ such a massive advantage. With then Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Brighton and others, knowing they have to get pretty much everything to fall right, if they are going to be able to compete on the pitch.

Maybe over a period of years, Newcastle United under this Saudi Arabia PIF and Reubens ownership, can make major inroads in closing that financial gap on the usual suspects. This is where I personally see a massive new stadium on Leazes Park/Castle Leazes as the big make or break move for the club. As well as allowing tens of thousands more fans in to watch their team, a modern state of the art 80k (pick your own figure) capacity stadium would be a serious game changer in helping NUFC to close that financial advantage the other clubs hold over us.

However, as things currently stand, Eddie Howe has a massive challenge to maintain the against all odds relative success he has delivered so far at St James’ Park.