A week or so ago, I noticed a flurry of posts on The Mag comments section about young Newcastle United players leaving the club. Along with the usual well wishes for their future careers were a number of accusations that, under Eddie Howe, youth just isn’t given a chance at the club.
Claims that young Newcastle United players are leaving to have their potential realised elsewhere.
I just feel that, under closer examination, the facts simply do not support these claims.
In my view, they have become exaggerated due to the PSR fiasco that saw the departure of two outstanding prospects in Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh. Both are now firmly established as potent weapons for their clubs, Nottingham Forest and Brighton. Indeed, Elliot Anderson is now regarded as an essential component of England’s World Cup squad.
Another player who divided opinion upon his departure was Adam Armstrong. A busy little forward with an eye for goal, “Arma” was well liked by the fan base but fell victim to Rafa’s preference for Premier League experience over youthful promise, as he was starved of transfer funds by the miserly policies of “Kind Mike” Ashley.
As it happens, Adam enjoyed a very productive spell on loan at Coventry City and was a hit at Blackburn Rovers. Having lived in the area for many years, I go to Ewood Park with friends when I visit relatives and the last time I was there he was man of the match and scored a cracking goal. His form at Blackburn earned him a move to the Premier League with Southampton, where he has had a credible, if unspectacular, career. Good luck to the lad but – as a loan spell with West Brom would suggest – he has hardly shown himself to be “the one that got away”.
I think that title rests firmly with Elliot Anderson.
But these are not the only young players to have moved on in recent times.
Cathal Heffernan, a much heralded Irish prospect, has made a permanent move to Harrogate Town. Previously, Garang Kuol had moved on to Sparta Prague. Neither had appeared for the first team in League action. Interestingly, Cathal moved to Tyneside from AC Milan, so had probably never seen a Mackem until his arrival at Newcastle International Airport!
Kuol’s departure in particular generated interest in that he had been lauded as the proverbial “wonder kid” after his £350,000 (transfer fees quoted are from various media sources) signing from the Australian club, Central Coast Mariners FC. At least the £580,000 fee received (plus, no doubt, potential add-ons were he to be sold for profit) meant he had yielded almost a quarter of a million in profit.
That small profit pales in comparison to the amount made due to the sale of Yankuba Minteh. We paid Danish outfit Odense £8 million for him – way more than any of the other youth signings made by the club. They do say that you have to speculate to accumulate and this proved to be the case with Minteh who brought in a respectable £35 million from Brighton.
No doubt Odense will have enjoyed a little windfall due to any sell-on clause inserted in their sale agreement but, with Brighton’s record for developing and selling on talent for vast profit, we may well become the recipient of something substantially more than that ourselves in the future.
Of course, what rankles with us all as supporters of NUFC is the fact that his sale was necessary at all. Due to a perceived PSR misjudgement by the club (which may well, ultimately, have been responsible for the departure of the much loved Amanda Staveley) Minteh and Anderson were both moved on in a last ditch effort to balance the books.
The only other recent young import with any Premier League experience was Harrison Ashby, who has also moved on, but on loan, to Bradford City (along with local lad Joe White). Ashby, who was bought from West Ham in January, 2023, came close to breaking into the matchday squad but never quite got there and spent periods on loan at Swansea and QPR.
So, who exactly are our “wonder kids” and where are they now?
Having extensively trawled sites such as Transfermarket, Wikipedia, The Mag and the Chronicle, I have done my best to come up with a definitive list of all youth signings made by our three Directors of Football appointed (so far!) by the current owners. I’ve ignored the local lads who have come through the age groups – these are the “imports”:
Young Newcastle United players brought to the club since the takeover:
To some extent, the detail of such deals are kept secret, especially where very young players are concerned, with matters occasionally being referred to tribunals for valuations to be set. Some of the valuations quoted above are estimates and some are initial fees which will be added to if certain targets are achieved. Putting the list together was a bit of a nightmare. I’ve done my best but if you notice the odd mistake or omission, dear reader, please keep it to yourself!
As you can see, Yankuba Minteh is the major success, financially, which I have already referred to. No doubt, if he hadn’t been on loan at Feyenoord he would have featured in first team action. None of the other “kids” on the list have managed to do so, to date.
So, what’s the point?
It seems clear that the club has noted the success enjoyed by Chelsea in particular. They have hoovered up a mass of young talent over the last decade, loaned most of them out and then recalled them at a later date or cashed in on their success with the loan clubs. This has generated some very healthy funds (to be added to the proceeds of selling assets to themselves) to help them defy the effects of PSR. The £28 million for Lewis Hall was pure profit and it won’t stop there if we sell him on for really big money as they, no doubt, have a nice percentage of any future fee fixed into the original transfer deal.
The hope is that we emulate Chelsea by unearthing some footballing gems, developing them – often with the aid of loan clubs – and then using them to either strengthen our first team pool or sell them on for profit.
Minteh aside, this doesn’t appear to have been the case so far but it’s early days. Many of the boys on the list are still teenagers and could well come good. Also, the majority have come either with no, or by modern standards, quite paltry, fees. We’ve taken a punt on promising youngsters and it’s too early to say whether it’s paid off or not. Having said that, Minteh’s profit will probably have paid for all of those fees and the lads’ wages and left a tidy sum of change in the kitty.
Three from the table have cost a little more than the average. Alfie Harrison, apparently, cost up to £3.5 million with £1 million paid initially. Young Serbian Miodrag Pivas came after payment of a £678,000 compensation fee to Jedinstvo Ub but potential add-ones could allegedly take that to £3 million (depending upon who you believe!). The Turkish lad, Baran Yildiz, was signed in a deal that reportedly could net his club, Genclerbirligi S.K., up to £2.5 million.
Alfie is currently an NUFC under 21 regular but has been the subject of transfer speculation involving Birmingham City but, three weeks into the January window, nothing has materialised as yet. Presumably, we would be looking at a decent fee to cover our costs so far. The other two boys are also with the under 21 squad but may well find themselves going out on loan, along with Alfie, to gain first team experience.
Looking back at the list, two more lads stand out as more “prestigious” signings. The first one is Park Seung-soo, the Korean who moved from Suwon Samsung Bluewings for an undisclosed fee. Dubbed the Korean Mbappe – presumably based on his turn of speed rather than his scoring record of 1 goal in 28 appearances – he impressed fans in the pre-season games but hasn’t featured with the first team so far. Presumably, he will be moving out on loan also.
The second one is a young Georgian called Vakhtang Salia. Unfortunately, his involvement has been minimal due to a hamstring injury. A forward, he played 59:games for Dinamo Tbilisi before the age of 18, scoring 8 goals. Again, no fee was disclosed but his current market value on Transfermarket is claimed to be £800,000.
Three of the remaining boys are on loan. Travis Hernes is now on loan at Groningen in the Netherlands. Trevan Sanusi is on loan at Lorient, in France. Antonito Cordero has headed back to Spain, in a loan deal with Cadiz, in order to achieve more first team football after having a lean time at Belgian outfit K.V.C.Westerlo.
All of the other lads are still at the club, training with the under 21s or even younger age groups. Most of them are still very young and unlikely to feature in or around the match day squad – apart, maybe, from Sam Alabi, who seems to be quite a prodigious talent.
Have the boys been given a chance under Eddie Howe?
I would say three things there.
Firstly, and I repeat, they are still young. Exposure to Premier League pressure and physicality could ruin a young career before it’s even started.
Secondly, I trust Eddie. He sees these players week in, week out in training and receives reports and stats from the other coaches. He knows if they’re ready.
Thirdly – and maybe most significantly – these youngsters are playing every week against other League clubs and their players and coaches are looking at them. Where is all the interest in signing our second stringers? It just doesn’t seem to be there yet. I’m not saying they’re no good – please refer to point 1, above!
So, no more golden eggs have been laid as yet. As one regular contributor on The Mag comments section has rightly said on several occasions (not me, I hasten to add!), you get what you pay for generally speaking. If you pay peanuts then you can expect a fair proportion of those buys to fizzle out and disappear. However, as Yankuba Minteh has shown (and, remember, he was sold well in advance of any planned move to cash in) one success can more than compensate for a handful of failures.
So, I’m going to add another column to my own copy of the table with the heading “Profit realised” and I’ll be following the lads’ progress and valuations with great interest.
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