'It can go wrong': Eddie Howe says teams 'live or die' based on recruitment - a strong stance to take after this season
Player recruitment at Newcastle United since the PIF takeover has been quite a mixed bag.
Initially, it looked like Newcastle's recruitment was flawless. Every player brought in hit the ground running and contributed massively towards launching Newcastle up the Premier League.
Since then, though, we've chewed up and spat out two sporting directors, neither of which were in any position to help in the past couple of summer windows and as a result, recruitment was left for Eddie Howe to oversee. It seems that without guidance, he's a bit lost.
The summer just gone, Newcastle looked to have recruited well, but the reality has been very different, with only Malick Thiaw proving to be value for money at this point. Jacob Ramsey is starting to prove his worth of late, but Anthony Elanga has looked like the biggest waste of £55 million, while Nick Woltemade has had his confidence absolutely destroyed as the season has gone on. We don't want to judge Yoane Wissa too much yet because we've hardly seen him, but that in itself is a problem.
Eddie Howe has asked for more time before judging his summer signings
So when Eddie Howe spoke to the media on Tuesday morning and said this about recruitment, we have to wonder what he's getting at.
"Recruitment is everything. I believe in live or die by recruitment to have the success you want. You can take a short-term view, but it can go wrong. It has to be long-term."
This, coming from a man who is currently dying by the short-term impact of his recruitment, seems like an odd thing to say.
Going on a rant here...
Obviously, we understand that he's asking us not to judge his new stars on just this one season and to wait and see what happens in the future, but it just sounds like a big ask right now.
We get that not every player is going to come in and have that immediate impact. I mean, we had to wait for well over a year to see the best of Lewis Hall, and now he's arguably our best player, but to be asking for time for his new recruits at this stage of the season after not making any additional signings in January just feels a bit much.
Patience and football don't go hand-in-hand. Fans, and more importantly, club owners, expect instant results, and that hasn't been the case this season, particularly from those who joined the club in the summer. WE're all for giving them time to settle, and we still maintain that the likes of Woltemade and Elanga will look like different players next season, but a good recruitment strategy with a full team in place would likely have seen these issues coming.
Again, that's not Eddie Howe's fault entirely, but it's not a mistake we can afford to make again this summer.
