Newcastle United fans preparing for the 2026/27 Premier League season.
Less than three weeks to go now until Liverpool travel to St James’ Park.
An ‘interesting’ summer so far…
So many talking points.
An ideal time to get a snapshot of views from Newcastle United fans on their thoughts.
So we sent out questions to a number of regular/irregular contributors to The Mag, varying to a degree the questions that different fans received to answer.
Next up answering some questions is Billy Miller:
Which eight current Newcastle United players (in order) are going to be most important for the 2026/27 season?
I would have Bruno top, but he might be gone before this article is even published.
Hall
Barnes
Ramsey
Osula
Woltemade
Thiaw
Hornicek
Miley
This isn’t necessarily the list of players that I think will be the 8 best (apart from Hall at top). It’s a mix of players that I think will have a good season but also weighted by players that we need to have a good season.
Barnes is our best finisher and needs to be consistent. I think Ramsey is the closest in style to Bruno. If he can kick on with increased first team opportunities, we many find we’ve already got a replacement. If Osula can pick up where he left off last season, he could be the answer to all our goalscoring problems. This will be a huge year for Woltemade who will either find his place or probably move on next summer. Thiaw must be solid again. We need a reliable keeper. Miley simply has to step up and stay fit. This is a golden opportunity to build the midfield around a Geordie boy. It’s a massive season for Elanga and Wissa who I believe will be better than last season. I think Steur could be a real breakthrough star this season despite his tender age. Although I only added Hornicek to the list, we need all these young signings to be a success to have any chance of pushing for Europe again.
Three words to describe how you currently feel as a Newcastle United fan?
Lost for words
Three words to describe Newcastle United now?
In transition… again
Do you see it as good news or bad news that Eddie Howe resigned?
Bad news for me. I was the self-anointed Lord Commander of the ‘Howe In’ camp. Lots of people on here commented on how we either needed a refresh of the team, coaching staff or manager coming into the new season. I can’t imagine many thought we’d get all three. I do think Eddie could have been the right man for the rebuild but if he himself doesn’t feel he has the energy then it’s the right thing for him to go. Sad to see him go but he’s up there with the absolute best we’ve ever had, for me.
Hand on heart, what position do you currently believe Newcastle United are most likely to finish in the 2026/27 Premier League season?
This season is the hardest one to predict as there are so many unknowns. We don’t know how the new signings will fare, the new manager, new system. Everything has changed so there is little basis for a confident prediction. I’m going to be positive and say top seven.
If Eddie Howe had stayed would your 2026/27 prediction have been different (up or down…)?
About the same, I think.
With no Europe to contend with, I am confident that we’ve still got enough to push for the higher end of the table.
However, there is still the best part of a month for things to change both positively and negatively.
Do you see a potential lack of leadership on the pitch next season if Bruno Guimaraes follows Kieran Trippier out of the club?
Enormously. I don’t even know who the captain will be. Burn is the obvious choice, but will he be playing every week? The players I see as guaranteed starters don’t strike me as natural leaders.
The opening six league games are Liverpool home, Spurs away, Bournemouth home, Leeds away, Hull home and Coventry away. How many points would Newcastle need to take for you to be happy and what would you predict will be the reality?
I’d be happy with 10. Four draws and two wins from that would be decent going. I think we can achieve that too. Whether it’s the above outcome or three wins and one draw, I think 10 points is attainable. Desperate for a new manager bounce and an emphatic home victory over Liverpool to start the season off. Then again, they’ve got a new manager too…
What do you see as the biggest priorities in the remainder of the transfer market this summer?
As I write this, Bruno is on his way. Therefore, we need an established midfielder to come in. Someone like Joao Gomes would have been perfect and went to Villa for the right kind of price. Did Sunderland say they’d take £30 million for Xhaka, when Chelsea expressed an interest? I know he’s 34 in September, but it’d be worth it just for the head loss on Wearside. We’re desperate for a full back or two. I’d go for someone experienced, reliable and can cover both positions. Aaron Wan-Bissaka would tick all the boxes for me. I think we need to save some money for January (and actually spend it if we need to this time). We’ve got a lot of highly rated youngsters that we’ve either signed or had around the squad for a few years. We need to integrate as many as we can this season to find out whether they can step up or need to be moved on.
Sandro Tonali leaving, your thoughts?
I was a little disappointed, but we got good money for him, and I was over it remarkably quickly. Like, within minutes.
What would represent success now in the 2026/27 season for Newcastle United?
What always represents success, a decent cup run and a push for Europe.
Predict the top six in the Premier League (in order) and which three clubs will be relegated in 2026/27.
I literally have no idea. This season has been one of the biggest for overhauls. So many teams have new managers or managers they appointed in the second half of last season. Lots of teams have gone big in the transfer market. I just hope neither Arsenal or Liverpool win the title (or anything for that matter) and that Sunderland get relegated. I’m over the novelty of having them in the same league as us.
Some time ago Yasir Al-Rumayyan said the intention was to make Newcastle United number one in the world, how far along the road to that do you think we are?
I think Yasir must have put the wrong postcode in his Sat Nav as we’re nowhere near that road currently. Before we sold Isak, it felt like we were only a couple of signings away from a title challenge. That may sound farfetched now but imagine if we hadn’t lost Isak and had brought in a top tier right winger and an elite goalkeeper. I think we would have been in the mix for Europe again and may have even pushed for a title challenge. But the finances would have caught up with us eventually regardless. Even if we’d finished second last season, I still think we’d have had to shift a top player or two to finance the rebuild needed with so many players leaving or no longer up to the job.
How would you rate your optimism for next season at Newcastle United from 0-100?
Ever the optimist. Let’s say 75. My glass is three quarters full.
How important (or not) is a huge new stadium for Newcastle United?
It is one of the most important things to sustain and increase our finances. We need a mega arena that not only fits in every fan that wants to see us but also becomes the home of North East entertainment. We should have concerts there all year round, boxing, WWE, NFL… blooming Comicon.
The club state that almost fifty thousand members have joined the season ticket waiting list. Sure, it may be that not every one of those people take up a ticket when they get the opportunity but even if there is a two thirds take up, that would justify an 80k+ super stadium. I visited the AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, this summer. If anyone knows an architect linked in any way to the new stadium project, tell them to check it out. Something like that would be perfect. We want players desperate to come to us and play in a majestic megadome that is the envy of every club in England. That’s my dream anyway.
When the takeover happened on 7 October 2021, if somebody at that point had told you then what would happen by August 2026, would you have taken it?
I predicted after the takeover we’d win the league in the 26/27 season, 100 year anniversary of the last time we won the top flight and all that. That was clearly a little too positive. But would I have taken two European campaigns and a trophy? Absolutely.
Did England have a successful 2026 World Cup finals?
On paper, yes. I never thought we’d win it. I said Spain or France right at the beginning. We absolutely threw away the chance of getting to the final though. A mixture of bad management and the English DNA kicking in, saw us get completely dominated by Argentina in the last half hour of a game we were in control of. If we’d made the final, who knows? But I would have still fancied Spain to pass us off the park.
Do you think the Newcastle United owners have a strong long-term plan for the club, or are they making it up as they go along?
If they do, it’s hard to identify precisely what it is. The new strategy of signing youngsters before they become megastars and then selling them for double or triple and reinvesting, isn’t necessarily a bad one. But currently we don’t know how good any of these players are going to be. If half of them have a torrid first season, we could be in real trouble as we need at least three of them to be contending regularly for first team football.
What do you think of the choice of Matthias Jaissle as the new NUFC boss?
My first thoughts were ‘who’ and ‘why’. But after reading plenty on him, including a long read on The Athletic, I actually think he could be an inspired selection. He has won lots of trophies already. Sure, they were in weaker leagues, but he’s still excelled. At Salzburg he had a team full of young players, and he helped them not only win back-to-back titles and the Austrian Cup, but also to qualify for the knockout rounds of the Champions League for the first and only ever time (that was back before the new massive league that makes it much easier to do so). He’s also won back-to-back Asian Champions Leagues with Al-Ahli as well as the Saudi Super Cup. Al-Ahli had never won the Champions League before. Decent pedigree for a bloke that I was devastated to discover is two weeks younger than me. I’m now officially old.
You can follow the author on Twitter @billymerlin