An endless discussion is now ensuing about the Newcastle United signings of summer 2025 and Eddie Howe.
Everybody agrees that the transfer window could have gone better.
Major disagreements amongst Newcastle United fans though, as to why it wasn’t what we had all hoped it was going to be.
Within those disagreements, much of the debate focuses on Eddie Howe.
Exactly where should we place the NUFC Head Coach amongst that debate.
For those desperate to attach blame to the Head Coach, I keep hearing the critics saying stuff along the lines of: “Eddie Howe had complete control of Newcastle United signings last summer which means…”
What the clear intention is, the implication, is to separate that summer 2025 transfer window from those that had gone before.
That Eddie Howe was totally responsible for the Newcastle United signings last summer BUT in previous windows had far less (no?) say on which players arrived at St James’ Park.
Putting it bluntly, what these fans (and media) want to claim is that Eddie Howe is to blame for the perceived failings of the summer 2025 transfer window, but others deserve a lot (all?) of the credit for the perceived transfer successes of earlier windows.
To me, this is nonsensical.
I think Eddie Howe has had the same say, the same influence, across all nine transfer windows since he arrived at Newcastle United.
What I understand happens, is that there is a never ending process of Eddie Howe and the recruitment team identifying potential signings. Then as the next window approaches (especially the summer ones) there will be preferential lists prepared of who they think would be the ideal signings for that next window. Potential availability, which positions in the team/squad need targeting the most and so on. Whilst above that process, the Newcastle United owners and senior staff (CEO, Sporting Director etc) making clear what kind of spending is possible in that next window. Including the possibility of selling certain players and thus increasing the extent of how much can be invested in new players, both in terms of transfer fees AND wages.
My strong assumption is that it will be Eddie Howe who then ahead of each window will have the final say in what the priorities are, the positions to be strengthened and his first, second, third… choices for each position. Maybe not exactly in a one by one descending order but certainly a case of, these are the ideal group of players from where I would like the Newcastle United signings to be from, then failing that we can move onto these ones.
Then for sure, in my opinion, all the first team signings that have been in these last nine transfer windows, it will have been Eddie Howe who has had the final say. As in unlike clubs like Chelsea, he will not have any signings imposed on him.
Like I said above though it is a never ending process and things will constantly change, new players suggested as possibilities, by both Eddie Howe and others, whilst of course availability can change on any potential target.
So what went wrong in summer 2025?
My belief is that Eddie Howe and the recruitment team didn’t do anything differently.
They went through the same processes, preparing lists of intended Newcastle United signings. Identifying the priority positions, then detailing in order, who the ideal targets would be.
Where I think it all failed miserably, was at the next stage, the execution of going after these targets. The part of the job that is done by senior staff working with the club owners, getting the deals done and signed off.
Eddie Howe made clear before last season ended, how absolutely vital it was to get transfer targets aggressively pursued ASAP, especially as we saw the summer 2025 transfer window open earlier than usual.
It was by far the biggest transfer window since the takeover. There had been no first team signings made since summer 2023. Indeed, Eddie Howe had done his bit, further whittling away the Newcastle United squad still further (Almiron and Kelly leaving in January 2025), plus he had also suffered the loss of two of United’s best young talents in summer 2024. Anderson and Minteh forced sales due to the incompetence of the club’s owners and senior staff, allowing a PSR crisis to develop that needed £50m+ of instant profit to avoid a points deduction.
Summer 2025 needed a serious influx of quality and quantity. Wilson, Dubravka, Hayden, Longstaff, Lewis, Vlachodimos (loan), Targett (loan) all following on from the departure in the previous 12 months of Almiron, Kelly, Fraser, Anderson, Minteh, Dummett, Hendrick, Karius, Ritchie…
When you added in the small matter of having to also compete in the Champions League, the early summer 2025 arrival of numerous new quality signings was absolutely vital.
No wonder Eddie Howe went so public in late May 2025 about the need to be ruthless and aggressive in the summer 2025 transfer window. I think now, looking back, he feared that this wasn’t going to happen…hence the going so public.
My belief is that we ended up with a perfect storm. The more reliable journalists covering Newcastle United have repeatedly said that the pace of decision making is so slow, so often, by the majority Saudi Arabia PIF owners. Moving rapidly to make dynamic essential signings of Eddie Howe’s top targets was always going to be difficult.
For the Newcastle United owners to then let a situation develop whereby there was no CEO or Sporting Director in place during summer 2025, who exactly was going to be pushing the deal-making side of getting these urgent signings? With no CEO or Sporting Director it feels very much like the whole window was doomed from the start.
It was reported later in the window that Jamie Reuben had got involved in trying to help in negotiations to get one or more signings over the line. It all felt too little to late. Speaking of which, the Alexander Isak situation couldn’t have been handled any worse.
Alexander Isak has claimed that he had made clear during the 2024/25 season that he wanted to leave in summer 2025, the striker pointing to a pay rise and new contract that had been promised by Amanda Staveley never happening, the then new Sporting Director Paul Mitchell said to have put a block on it happening.
At what exact point the Newcastle United owners first knew of Alexander Isak wanting to leave is open to conjecture. What we do know for certain though is that they knew by early July 2025 at the latest and then things really fell apart for Newcastle United and especially the impact it had on Eddie Howe getting any kind of positive pre-season.
The Newcastle United owners told Liverpool that Alexander Isak wouldn’t be sold. Newcastle then tried to buy Hugo Ekitike to fill the place in the squad caused by Callum Wilson leaving, Liverpool reacted to Newcastle’s Isak snub by then outbidding them on Ekitike with far higher wages than United were able/willing to.
The overwhelming belief at the time and I think for sure this would have been the case, is that if the Newcastle United owners had said to Liverpool: Let us bring Ekitike in and then we will sell you Isak for whatever,” then the scousers would have stood aside on the then Eintracht Frankfurt striker.
Nobody is excusing Isak’s behaviour across summer 2025 but surely the most important thing was that Newcastle United would prepare for this huge 2025/26 season in the best possible way. The Newcastle United owners made clear at the time via the media, that they weren’t going to allow Alexander Isak to leave. This found favour amongst the vast majority of Newcastle fans, don’t let Isak ‘win’ by going on strike and instead force him to accept at some point that he needs to train and play this 2025/26 season for Newcastle United, then allow him to leave in summer 2026 if he still wanted to. At such an important point in his career, the belief was that a new contract could be then agreed to give Isak extra money in the meantime and he would accept he’d have to play, especially as Sweden hoping to get to the 2026 World Cup finals with his help.
What actually happened was of course a total shambles.
Eddie Howe saw only one of the eventual six summer 2025 signings have any pre-season with Newcastle United. No senior strikers available during pre-season, nor indeed the first month of the 2025/26 season. Yasir Al-Rumayyan and the rest of the Saudi Arabia PIF Newcastle United directors came to Tyneside for a number of days around the first home match of the season, along with Jamie Reuben, this only days before the end of the summer 2025 transfer window. Newcastle United lost 3-2 at SJP to Liverpool with Hugo Ekitike one of the goalscorers, United losing despite having been the better team even with 10 men. On their visit to Tyneside for this match, the Newcastle United owners (it isn’t clear whether Yasir Al-Rumayyan personally went himself but others from Saudi Arabia PIF certainly did) went to visit Alexander Isak at his house to ask if he would stay, he said no (as he had made clear for so long). The NUFC owners then selling Alexander Isak to Liverpool on the very final day of the transfer window and that was it. Eddie Howe the one having to pick up the pieces.
Long-term targets
Malick Thiaw, Jacob Ramsey and Anthony Elanga were all long-term targets of Eddie Howe. James Trafford, Joao Pedro and Hugo Ekitike the same. That previous interest had been made public and indeed widely reported bids rejected for some of them in past windows.
My belief is that Thiaw and Ramsey have shown themselves to be very good signings, Elanga showing glimpses of why Eddie Howe wanted him but of course needing to do far more to justify why. The fact that Elanga got the third highest number of Premier League assists in the 2024/25 season backs up why Eddie Howe was justifiably interested. Aaron Ramsdale had been previously bought and managed by Eddie Howe at Bournemouth and as a loan signing I think he has done okay.
I am not writing off Nick Woltemade or Yoane Wissa either. Big Nick has already got double figure NUFC goals as well as some assists. He has showed touches of real quality and for such an inexperienced player has done relatively okay in his first season in the Premier League. Yoane Wissa scored 19 PL goals last season and regularly scored goals previously, mainly playing as a winger. His Newcastle season shattered by a major injury before kicking a ball for NUFC. Hopefully we will get something out of him these last seven matches and then like Big Nick, can he then be a far bigger Newcastle United asset next season, if getting properly fit and having a pre-season?
Having said all that about these two strikers, they were no more near the top of Eddie Howe’s summer 2025 wishlist than Aaron Ramsdale was.
As last summer went on, it became increasingly apparent that Yoane Wissa would be the last gasp Premier League ready replacement if Alexander Isak did end up leaving. Whilst Nick Woltemade only became available late in the summer 2025 transfer window when Bayern messed Stuttgart around so long and made a number of derisory offers, they eventually told them to do one.
My guess is that if you went back to the end of last season and had told Eddie Howe he would be relying on Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa as his two strikers in this massive 2025/26 season, he would have been stunned. No disrespect to the pair of them but quite obviously they weren’t anything like what was realistically needed, with such a massive immediate challenge ahead. However, due to the way the Newcastle United owners had mishandled everything, this is where we ended up.
Convincing other clubs to sell their most important players, their goalscorers, so late in the summer 2025 transfer window? If you remember, Yoane Wissa went on his own mini-strike to force Brentford to sell him and Stuttgart had already previously resigned themselves to losing Nick Woltemade.
Woltemade such an inexperienced player and then Wissa injured straight away. If they and all the other summer 2025 signings had experienced a pre-season with their new teammates, the chance for Eddie Howe to integrate them over a period of time, then maybe this season could still have worked out far better. Never mind if Eddie Howe had got all of his essential signings in early last summer AND they had been from his preferred options.
1 June 2025
The summer 2025 transfer window opened earlier than usual and the Newcastle United owners should have had everything ready in advance, get strong offers made clear to clubs and players and look to get in before rival clubs.
Once an auction situation develops against certain clubs, especially on wages, Newcastle United at a disadvantage.
Rafa Benitez often used to say, it wasn’t necessarily about the total amount of money you had to spend, it was about getting in early to do transfer business, be dynamic in getting deals done.
Apologies for going on at some length about the summer 2025 transfer window but I feel there is a lot of unfair criticism that has been aimed at Eddie Howe and it needs to be challenged.
A lot of fans and of course the media are desperate to claim that summer 2025 was simply a case of Eddie Howe picking all the wrong signings. As though he sat down ahead of last summer and chose those six eventual signings as his ideal top priority targets and was also somehow to blame for having had no pre-season with five of the six.
The complete record of Eddie Howe Newcastle United signings (so far…)
January 2022 saw Eddie Howe sign Dan Burn (£13m), Bruno Guimaraes (£35m plus £6.25m potential add-ons), Chris Wood (£25m), Kieran Trippier (£12m) and Matt Targett (loan).
Summer 2022 and it was Nick Pope (£10m), Matt Targett (£12m), Sven Botman (£35m), Alexander Isak (£59m plus £4m add-ons).
January 2023 saw Eddie Howe adding Anthony Gordon (£40m plus £5m add-ons).
Summer 2023 it was Sandro Tonali (£55m), Harvey Barnes (£38m), Tino Livramento £32m plus £6m add-ons), Lewis Hall (loan and agreement to make permanent for £28m in summer 2024), Yankuba Minteh (£7m).
January 2024 there were no significant signings.
Summer 2024 saw Odysseas Vlachodimos (£20m) and Will Osula (£10m plus potential £5m add-ons).
January 2025 there were no significant signings.
Summer 2025 and Anthony Elanga (£52m plus £3m potential add-ons), Jacob Ramsey (£39m), Malick Thiaw (£30m plus £4m add-ons), Nick Woltemade (£65m plus £4.3m add-ons), Yoane Wissa (£55m) and Aaron Ramsdale (loan).
Moving forward
We now have the semblance of a proper structure in place at Newcastle United.
David Hopkinson at CEO and Ross Wilson as Sporting Director.
It will be a challenging summer in the transfer market but I think even if we see one or more key players leave, Newcastle United under Eddie Howe will come out of this summer 2026 transfer window in a far better place.
I believe lessons will have been learnt by the Newcastle United owners and Eddie Howe will be properly supported this time. His top targets aggressively moved for as early as possible, to allow the best possible pre-season.