During the Premier League season, The Athletic’s Newcastle United subscribers can ask our writers covering the club for their views and insight into what’s happening at St James’ Park.
We have pulled together some of the questions and our answers from Monday’s edition of our Inside Newcastle live Q&A, which included queries about what this week’s meetings with ownership at Matfen Hall are about, Eddie Howe’s continued non-selection of Nick Woltemade as a striker, and whether Leazes Park is a genuine prospective site for a new stadium.
Want to ask us anything else Newcastle-related? Chris Waugh will be back later this month for another session.
Any updates from the PIF meetings at Matfen Hall yet? Or info as to what might come from them? — Andrew M
Waugh: There is a lot of fascination surrounding Newcastle’s ownership, including Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the club chairman, flying in to oversee a series of meetings at the grandiose location of Matfen Hall, a hotel and spa in Northumberland, 15 miles or so west of the city.
Al-Rumayyan — governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Newcastle’s 85 per cent majority owner — will lead a delegation of officials from the sovereign wealth fund, while Jamie Reuben, the minority stakeholder, will also be present. David Hopkinson, Newcastle’s CEO, and Ross Wilson, the sporting director, as well as Howe, will be among the senior club figures in attendance (although the head coach will not be there throughout, with department heads only present for specific meetings).
Those inside the club are playing down the significance of these meetings later in the week, many of which are due to take place on Thursday, with genuine bewilderment from some at Newcastle as to why so much focus is being placed upon this annual ‘off-siting’, as it is called. The ownership met staff at Matfen Hall in February 2025, while they have also gathered at Alnwick Castle in previous years, something Amazon Prime highlighted in the We Are Newcastle United documentary looking at the 2022-23 campaign.
The way these ‘away days’ usually work is that there will be a series of presentations from departmental heads across the club — including from Howe — outlining what has been happening and what their vision for the future is. Last year, for example, attendees were shown a concept video of what a new state-of-the-art stadium in Leazes Park could look like (although they were not finalised plans and were merely envisaging what Newcastle could theoretically build).
More than 12 months on and Newcastle are yet to come to a decision on whether to extend and rebuild St James’ Park, or move to a site nearby. Plans to build a state-of-the-art training ground have yet to be announced, either, even if Newcastle have identified a plot in Woolsington, near Newcastle International Airport, as their ideal location.
Those big-ticket items will be discussed, with the hierarchy likely to plead greater urgency on both. Confirmation of training ground plans seem far more likely than an immediate decision on the stadium. Howe will also present his ideas for reconstructing the first-team squad, while the recruitment team, possibly via Wilson, will outline incoming and outgoing plans for a very busy summer ahead.
Al-Rumayyan is expected to seek answers as to why this season has taken such a negative turn results-wise, especially in the Premier League, and will want to know where Newcastle are when it comes to the pathway towards achieving their ambitious Vision 2030 (a detailed plan for which already received unanimous board approval over the winter).
Newcastle are playing down the significance of this week’s meetings and are insisting they should not be conflated with the team’s current struggles and questions over Howe’s position. Yet, while a resolution on the latter feels unlikely to arrive this week, arguments for and against keeping the head coach will probably become clearer to those at boardroom level once feedback is provided from key departments at this annual general review of club operations.
Given our superior points return with Woltemade leading the line, is it tactical inflexibility and incompetence for Howe not to start him? — Euan M
Waugh: The Woltemade debate is being portrayed by some as the catalyst of a borderline culture war among fans at the moment, separating those who are hardline ‘Howe in’ and hardline ‘Howe out’ (although that is a very basic way of looking at it, horribly homogenising supporter views into rather facile, crude camps).
Up until February 8, when Woltemade was almost exclusively used as a No 9 in the starting XI, Newcastle averaged 1.4 goals per game, 1.5 points per match, and had a win percentage of 41.2 per cent across the 17 Premier League fixtures he started. Those figures dropped to 1.3, 1.0, and 25 per cent for the eight matches in which he was not in the XI.
So there is some validity to the argument that, when Woltemade led the line, Newcastle did generally have better results, but extending that to the subsequent three months is trickier from a purely statistical perspective. Woltemade has often played in midfield while Bruno Guimaraes missed 12 games due to injury, and Newcastle’s general form has nosedived.
Nick Woltemade has not had regular minutes in a Newcastle shirt as of late (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Woltemade’s issue, having scored with each of his first six shots on target across all competitions, is that, stylistically, Newcastle have not adapted well enough to accommodate the German, nor has he shown enough in general play to suit Howe’s approach. Woltemade proved prolific from scant service early on, then when the goals dried up, Newcastle struggled as a side in my view.
The tactical inflexibility point is fair, given Howe seems wedded to playing with a lone striker and Woltemade has appeared more comfortable in his all-round game when he has partnered someone up front or played as a No 10. As a lone centre-forward, Woltemade has not been good enough with his back to goal and has not put himself about physically enough. The counter would be that he is a technical player, yet in the Premier League, you still need to show those traits to thrive.
In a way, it feels like Woltemade has benefited perception-wise from a spell out of the side. He is a top-class footballer, but neither he nor this Newcastle side, nor Howe, have adjusted well enough to one another so far. On saying that, it would not surprise me if Woltemade started against Brighton next Saturday, given his promising cameo against Arsenal, and if the Germany international excels, then Howe’s unwillingness to start him recently will only be highlighted further.
Probably moot as I no longer believe PIF will fund ‘big-ticket items’, but is there a reason you (and many others) casually talk about us building a stadium in Leazes Park? Surely it would be immensely complicated for that to happen — Andrew R
Waugh: Until PIF do give the go-ahead for one of those big infrastructure projects, your cynicism will continue to be shared by many other fans. It would be nice if there was progress this week on either, with an announcement following the Matfen Hall board meeting — and some inside the club are keen to push for movement on one or both — although rarely do decisions get made quickly when it comes to PIF ‘greenlighting’ big-money calls.
Regarding Leazes Park, I am not sure it is fair to say The Athletic has been casual about that merely happening. Our special report on the stadium last year underscored how complex that would be, as well as explaining the complications around extending St James’ Park.
We, like other media outlets, regularly cite Leazes Park as the preferred alternative site for many senior figures because that is the well-sourced information we have. Part of the reason for the delay in an announcement on the stadium, beyond how it will be funded, is because of how delicate and knotty a process it would be to get planning permission to build a ‘super stadium’ on historic parkland.
Newcastle’s equivocation has only made it even more difficult a prospect, too, given that a petition with more than 28,000 signatures against the idea was presented to Newcastle City Council last year, before the club had even confirmed publicly that their intention is to build a new stadium there.
Any truth on the Amanda Staveley rumours? — Simon D
Waugh: This is presumably in reference to a report from a UK journalist who claimed that Staveley has assembled a group of U.S. investors ahead of a prospective bid for West Ham, while also citing Newcastle as an alternative should PIF and the Reubens decide to sell.
From the conversations that we’ve had, our understanding is that there is no truth in this proposed timeline of events. Staveley, the former minority owner of Newcastle, has been looking to get a consortium together that can buy a stake in a Premier League club, but Tottenham Hotspur, as has been widely reported, is the one she has identified as being ripe for a takeover.
Many Newcastle fans may long for Staveley to return, but that does not appear likely — certainly in the short-to-medium term. And, as we reported earlier this month, PIF and the Newcastle hierarchy are adamant that the current owners still plan to remain for a substantial period yet.
The leaks for next season’s home kit indicate a shirt with one big black stripe and lots of smaller stripes with blue trim. Is this the kit you expect? Do you expect a non-PIF front-of-shirt sponsor? — Ben F
Waugh: Without knowing which leaked kit pictures you are referring to, that does sound similar to the design that the club and Adidas have gone for. Although it is still a black-and-white-striped theme, the design does mark a change from previous monochrome editions (even if Newcastle have experimented with tradition previously, too).
Shirt-sponsorship-wise, more than half of Premier League clubs are believed to be coming to the end of their existing deals, and with greater restrictions on advertising gambling companies, multiple industry insiders have suggested the money on offer is likely to be depressed.
Currently, Sela, a PIF firm, pays around £25million ($33.9m) for the front-of-shirt deal. Whether Newcastle can get such a substantial fee for 2026-27, with their three-year Sela contract expiring, remains to be seen. There is a possibility Sela or another PIF brand remains on Newcastle’s kit, especially if the club can strike a better deal with an associated party rather than by going to the open market, which looks unfavourable economically right now.
Having tied KNOX Hydration down as a training-ground sponsor, Hopkinson and his commercial team must now try to find the most lucrative possible front-of-shirt partner.
Newcastle’s front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with Sela expires at the end of this season (Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)
Will all of the out-of-contract players be released this summer? — Stephen L
Waugh: It looks that way, yes.
Kieran Trippier’s exit has already been confirmed, third-choice goalkeeper John Ruddy will follow, while Emil Krafth is set to depart following an injury-affected season. What happens to Mark Gillespie, the fourth-choice goalkeeper, is less clear.
Fabian Schar’s time at Newcastle is expected to come to an end, too. The 34-year-old has been a magnificent servant, making 251 appearances since joining in 2018, but has been sidelined with an ankle injury since January. Newcastle are looking to bring in a younger centre-half replacement to challenge Malick Thiaw.
Aaron Ramsdale, meanwhile, will almost certainly return to Southampton following his season-long loan, with Newcastle to opt against enacting an option-to-buy clause. The 27-year-old was a stop-gap signing last summer following Newcastle’s failure to land long-term target James Trafford, who they remain keen admirers of, and although Ramsdale enjoyed a two-month stint in goal, he was dropped for Nick Pope on Saturday.
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