Jamie Carragher has raised Carragher Newcastle PIF questions publicly, asking whether the Saudi-backed owners have lost interest in the club as Newcastle United head into the new Premier League season stripped of three of their biggest names and with a new head coach barely in the door.
Speaking on The Overlap’s Fan Debate, sponsored by Sky Bet, Carragher did not hold back. ‘Have the owners lost interest in the club?’ he said. ‘Because when I questioned it before about Liverpool’s people coming in, what can they do? How rich they are. But they can do something with the stadium. They can do something with the training ground. Newcastle have still got no real improvement to their training [ground].’
Carragher Newcastle PIF questions centre on stadium and training ground
The criticism lands hard. The 48-year-old pointed out that despite receiving the green light from PIF to make changes around NE1, only £10 million has been spent on improvements to the club’s Benton training base, with no real upgrade to the stadium itself. For a state-backed ownership group with the resources at their disposal, that is a charge worth answering.
The backdrop to all of this is a dramatic summer clear-out. Sandro Tonali has left for Tottenham Hotspur for €108 million, according to Transfermarkt, while Anthony Gordon has joined FC Barcelona for €80 million. Bruno Guimaraes, the engine of Newcastle’s midfield in recent seasons, has moved to Premier League title holders Arsenal, as reported by Yahoo Sports. Three of the players who defined the Howe era, gone in a single window.
A new man in the dugout and a difficult opening fixture
Into this rebuild steps Matthias Jaissle, appointed head coach after Eddie Howe’s departure. Jaissle arrives with credentials: Reuters reports he led Saudi Arabian club Al-Ahli to back-to-back AFC Champions League titles before taking the Newcastle job. But he has had almost no time to put his stamp on the squad, having taken over on the eve of the new season, and has already admitted his side are not ready for what is coming.
What is coming, first up, is Carragher’s old club. Newcastle host Liverpool on Sunday, 23 August in their Premier League opener, a game that now looks a considerably more daunting prospect than it would have done even a few months ago. Jaissle will be missing key personnel, managing a squad in transition, and fielding questions he cannot yet fully answer about the club’s direction.
Carragher, drawing on his own experience as a player, framed the situation through the lens of Liverpool’s rebuild under Rafael Benitez. ‘I always felt this team was going to get broken up this summer,’ he said. ‘I remember when a team gets to a certain level and it can’t go any further, but there are players in that team who can. It happened to us at Liverpool, a team under Rafael Benitez, where we were getting to the semi-final of the Champions League, a Champions League final, competing for the league.’
He continued: ‘As soon as we had one season where we dropped off, where we finished the season fifth or sixth, we had [Javier] Mascherano, [Xabi] Alonso, [Fernando] Torres, who were world class players. We weren’t building Liverpool back up. I was frustrated at the time as a player, but I get it.’
The parallel to Newcastle’s current situation is direct. Tonali and Guimaraes, Carragher argued, were better than what the team around them achieved. ‘When I stand back and look at Newcastle’s situation, Tonali and Guimaraes, they were better than what the team did,’ he said. ‘The team and the players have to grow together, and as soon as one drops off, or certainly the club, the players sort of move on.’
Whether the Carragher Newcastle PIF questions get an answer before the season starts looks unlikely. The Premier League campaign kicks off next weekend, and Jaissle’s priority right now is getting his new-look side anywhere near ready for the visit of Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool. The rebuild has already begun whether Newcastle wanted it to or not.