It has now been revealed that Shola Ameobi will no longer be loans manager at Newcastle United.
This is part of a major overhaul within the club.
A media exclusive from The i Paper reporting: “Shola Ameobi is to leave his role as loans manager at Newcastle United as the club ponder changes to a department regarded as central to their plan for attracting top talent from across the world.”
However, the former United player isn’t leaving the club.
Instead, the report goes on to say that he is moving into a new ambassadorial role and that: “It is viewed as a natural evolution of the former striker’s position at Newcastle and he remains highly-rated by the club, who want to deploy his leadership qualities across the business.”
Newcastle United set to now look for a new person to take on the loan managers role.
Meanwhile, The i Paper say that the new Shola Ameobi job: “Will be an expanded ambassadorial and corporate role…with more involvement with the club’s increasing number of commercial and civic partners.”
Fair to say that Newcastle United fans have viewed the loans side at the club as a disaster zone in recent years. Player after player going out on loan and so many times rarely playing at their temporary homes, never mind progressing/succeeding.
Yankuba Minteh the stand out exception. Bought for a reported £7m and sold a year later to Brighton for £33m, having spent a very successful year on loan at Feyenoord.
With so many disastrous loan spells season after season, fans have been keen to point the finger at Shola Ameobi as loans manager. There have been claims that it isn’t actually the Mackem Slayer who chooses which clubs young Newcastle United players go on loan to, if that is the case then it begs the question of who exactly it is?
My assumption is that Shola Ameobi might not be the main man responsible when selecting which clubs are the best fit, but that he has played a significant part in the whole process over many years, especially overseeing the loan spells during the time the players are at these clubs. So Shola must take a fair share of any credit or blame for how things have turned out with so many loan players over so many years.
The i Paper going on to say: “Loans are absolutely critical to Newcastle’s vision for bringing in young talent and developing them – either to play a part in the first team or to sell on as part of a trading strategy that will be critical to coping with financial rules. Newcastle’s six-man loans team is well-resourced and viewed as behind only Chelsea in terms of finance invested. Ameobi has been assisted by fellow former player Peter Ramage – who will remain in his role as assistant loans manager – and a physio, psychologist, sport scientist and data analyst. The club acknowledge that finding the “right” loan is a huge part of the challenge they face and have worked over the last few years to build relationships with clubs in markets like the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium.”
Like everything else at Newcastle United, the big thing is hoping that moving forward the loans side of things does develop a record of success, of better fits with clubs where young players go, where they progress during their time there. Getting young players to develop so that they are competing for a first team place, or to be able to be sold to generate revenues that will help sign other players.