Newcastle United sporting director addresses the media frenzy suggesting a 'civil war' in September

Last night Newcastle United held a 'We Are United' fan event at St James' park STACK which saw some of the top brass at the club speaking publicly about club matters.

Sporting director Paul Mitchell spoke at the event which is the first time he's really faced the public since all the rumours of a rift between himself and Eddie Howe dominated headlines at the start of the season.

Mitchell took over from Dan Ashworth as sporting director in the summer, but the timing of his arrival couldn't have been worse.

Landing in the middle of a transfer window, days after two popular members of the board had departed and just after a PSR-fuelled fiasco that saw two top young talents sold, the former Monaco man must have wondered what he'd got himself into.

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'I enjoyed the Eddie and Paul Watch' - Paul Mitchell

We all know how the summer's transfer activity panned out and that sparked rumours that Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell were at loggerheads and it took weeks, even months for the speculation to die down.

Speaking at the event last night, Paul Mitchell made light of the whole thing assuring guests that it was all much ado about nothing.

"I was enjoying the 'Eddie and Paul Watch' in September. 'Day One: Of the Eddie and Paul Watch - Have they spoken to each other?' I actually thought that was quite good commentary.

"I'm not a big social media fan, I'm not a big media fan in general, but we work closely. It's a natural collaboration. He's the head coach and manager and I'm the social director, but this notion that we live in each other's pockets, that we spend every waking hour in each other's company is wrong.

"Eddie is an elite professional, it would be remiss of me, or any sporting director to be looking over his shoulder, to being on the training pitch, to micromanaging someone that is extremely talented at what he does. It's my job to support, it's to collaborate, to support, to challenge, to debate, all for the benefit of the football club.

"We have a very talented manager. Our collaboration is as frequent or as unfrequent as it needs to be."

This should surely be the end of the 'civil war' talk now

Mitchell spoke really well, and clearly has a lot of respect for Eddie Howe but as he went on to say, his duties as sporting director don't end with supporting Eddie Howe.

He has the youth teams and the women's team to look after as well as the first team plus recruitment on top of that, so it's only natural that he and Howe won't be in constant communication.

It has taken three months, but it's good to finally get Mitchell's side of all of this and now it can be put to bed fully, forever. Hopefully.