Eddie Howe and Bruno Guimaraes were the key figures of the past five years.
The manager and (eventual) captain leading Newcastle United to what had felt unimagined riches in a decade and a half before the October 2021 takeover.
Eddie Howe at the top of the tree managing his squad.
Bruno Guimaraes the talisman delivering on and off the pitch.
It feels like a lifetime ago when with 17 Premier League matches of the 2021/22 season to go and only two of the opening 21 producing victories, Eddie Howe signed Bruno Guimaraes at the end of January for £35m (plus £6.25m in potential add-ons).
Safe to say that those £6.25m add-ons were triggered with what followed.
The second half of that 2021/22 Premier League season saw only Liverpool and Manchester City pick up more points than Newcastle United, incredible stuff by Eddie Howe and whilst Bruno Guimaraes was given time by the manager to settle in, once he scored that stunning backheel winner in his first ever start (at Southampton), Bruno never looked back.
The rest as they say is history.
The four full seasons saw Bruno Guimaraes and Eddie Howe lead Newcastle United to three top seven finishes, two cup finals, two Champions League qualifications, two top five finishes, a trophy.
The 2025/26 season was a tough one, reaching the last 16 of the Champions League, the semi-finals of the Carabao, fifth round of the FA Cup, but also finishing 12th in the Premier League. Bruno Guimaraes also suffered his first injury of any magnitude when at NUFC, missing a key couple of months from February into April. I think 58 matches for such a small squad and so few real quality players was a real killer, it was mission impossible in reality in my eyes.
If Newcastle United fans thought that the final stages of the 2025/26 season were disappointing, fair to say that what has followed is far worse. For me it is anyway.
This summer was always going to be a tough one, especially due to the UEFA SCR impact that very much limited the financial flex Newcastle United would have. Careful management of transfers in and out as well as the wage bill.
The 2026/27 season was for sure going to be seriously challenging come what may.
Something that for me meant the huge priority, the absolute priority, should have been for those in charge at Newcastle United, owners and senior staff, to sit both Eddie Howe and Bruno Guimaraes down together and ask them what it would take for both of them to be totally committed and confident of tackling the 2026/27 season together. Our leaders staying and leading the way.
That clearly didn’t happen.
I think that quite clearly Ross Wilson had been given far more power. Not a case of Eddie Howe losing all control but clearly a major shift in how the transfer window would be conducted.
My belief is that Eddie Howe ended up with far less say when it came to whether players were sold and at the same time less say on which signings should be made. I think he would have still been able to say no to a signing and not have any forced on him, but Ross Wilson becoming the main man running the recruitment show.
I think Kieran Trippier leaving was the first big blow. My belief is that Eddie Howe would certainly have been in favour of trying to keep him for at least one more season but the change in how things were done, meant that in my opinion, the club wouldn’t have offered Trippier the same wages and no surprise he walked away for first team football and a two year contract at Wolves.
Anthony Gordon was clearly put up for sale long before last season ended and who knows what Eddie Howe thought about that. I think maybe he was accepting that one of his key players had to be sold to satisfy the UEFA SCR situation.
The end of May and the end of the season, Bruno Guimaraes heads off to link up with Brazil whilst Eddie Howe takes a well deserved break. Only a couple of weeks later though and the Sandro Tonali to Tottenham claims began.
I think now that when this all started in mid-June the writing was on the wall for the Newcastle United manager and captain.
I believe that with Eddie Howe still in charge and Bruno and Tonali in tandem in the midfield, Newcastle United could have successfully negotiated the 2026/27 season. What exactly would have counted as success is another thing…but to me it would have been relative success that could have been achieved and that now looks a very tough ask with how things have ended up.
With the Trippier and Gordon dominoes having already toppled, once Tonali followed…I think Bruno Guimaraes and Eddie Howe were all but guaranteed to fall as well.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the targeting of young promising players as a key part of the Newcastle United plan, indeed that is what Eddie Howe proved so brilliant at, when recruiting the likes of Hall, Isak, Bruno, Gordon, Livramento, Tonali…
However, this summer has seen the recruitment even younger than most of those successes under Howe and far greater risks with far less experience behind them, far more likely to fail and far more likely to take longer to reach their full potential.
Newcastle United have shifted to a model that sees the Sporting Director far more pivotal in directing the transfer strategy and just maybe it might prove successful against the odds.
However, I do think that for especially this coming season it has put Newcastle United at great risk.
If there had been a big sit down with Eddie Howe and Bruno Guimaraes in May, maybe things would have been different, maybe nothing would have been different. At the same time though I think without the pair of them being at the heart of the plan going forward, it massively helped ensure they would both leave.
Eddie Howe came back in early July ahead of pre-season and informed the club he would be leaving, volunteering to hold the fort until a replacement was ready to come in. Which turned out to be Matthias Jaissle.
I don’t buy into this attempt to make out Bruno Guimaraes to be the big bad guy of this summer. I still don’t know what he has done wrong apart from inform the club he wanted to leave? Everything else is smoke and mirrors with talk of a super agent brought in to help get a move and so on.
By the same token the Newcastle United hierarchy were clearly quite happy to move out Trippier, Gordon and Tonali for financial reasons, so Bruno Guimaraes can hardly be blamed in my opinion, when he chooses to follow them out as well.
The idea that the NUFC owners and senior staff thought that moving these key players out would then still see both Eddie Howe and Bruno Guimaraes up for staying, is straining credibility.
The Newcastle United owners believing that, is on a par with when we had the farce of Alexander Isak going on strike throughout summer 2025 and the NUFC owners doing nothing to sort it. Then believing they could turn up at the very end of the window, go round his house and suddenly convince him to change his mind!!
I hope for the best this coming season but fear the worst.
If the worst does happen, I certainly won’t be pointing the finger at Eddie Howe and Bruno Guimaraes if it all goes pear-shaped.
The Newcastle United owners have to step up belatedly and produce a cohesive long-term strategy to properly progress the club. If they don’t do that, we will have a lot more to worry about than what happens this coming season.