There will be no asterisk next to Newcastle United’s name in the Premier League table for 2023-24, but in many ways there should be. It has been a season of hurt for Eddie Howe and his squad, a perfect storm of discomfort, when the games racked up and players went down, when injuries dominated everything, scarred everything, changed everything.
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In November, Howe described Newcastle’s injury situation as “unprecedented”. Physical damage is a byproduct of a physical sport and all clubs suffer, but Newcastle’s suffering has been more potent and prolonged than any other. Five months on, the unprecedented has simply become the weary way it is.
It is difficult to believe this is the same season as Newcastle 4-1 Paris Saint-Germain, a result to rival any other at St James’ Park in the modern era. There have been vivid highs — a biggest win at Old Trafford since 1930, an 8-0 hammering of Sheffield United, victories over Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Sunderland — but all of it has played out to a downcast drumbeat of medical bulletins.
Partially, it is impossible to rationalise; the broken back, the dislocations, the plethora of random agonies. As Bruno Guimaraes puts it: “I’ve never been at a club with these types of injuries. Some have been very, very strange.”
Partially, it becomes impossible to avoid; as more players go missing, the greater the demands on those who remain, the quicker you need absentees to return, which becomes a ceaseless circle of affliction.
And, partially, it is about getting things wrong. In Newcastle’s case, being a club who have the ambition to get to the very top, but cannot spend the money they (theoretically) have because of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) and are still unequipped to fight on multiple fronts. “If we are sitting here going, ‘We have not made any mistakes’, I think we are being fools,” Howe said.
Has it really been that bad? (Spoiler alert: yes) How do Newcastle view it? What, if anything, is responsible and what are they doing about it?
The Athletic has attempted to find out …
The long “shortlist” of injuries
First, some brief “highlights”…
Nick Pope, goalkeeper
Dislocated shoulder diving to save a shot vs Manchester United on December 2.
Kieran Trippier, right-back
Suffered a calf injury against Wolves on March 2.
Tino Livramento, right-back
Injured his ankle vs West Ham on March 30 when the ball hit his foot.
Matt Targett, left-back
Tore hamstring 90 seconds into Carabao Cup match at Old Trafford on November 1.
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Dan Burn, left-back/centre-half
Landed awkwardly and fractured three bones in his back against Arsenal on November 4.
Sven Botman, centre-back
Tweaked his knee against Brentford on September 16, played twice more before he was diagnosed with an anterior cruciate knee ligament (ACL) injury. Rested three months. Ruptured the same ACL against Manchester City on March 16 and underwent surgery.
Jamaal Lascelles, centre-back
Fell awkwardly against West Ham on March 26 and ruptured his ACL. Underwent surgery.
Joe Willock, midfielder
Suffered a serious hamstring injury last season and succumbed to an Achilles tendon problem during his rehabilitation. Did not feature until October 25. His Achilles flared against Bournemouth on November 11 and he missed three months. Forced off against Fulham on Saturday with the same issue.
Sean Longstaff, midfielder
Suffered an ankle injury against Bournemouth on November 11.
Lewis Miley, midfielder
Suffered a back problem during the March international break.
Elliot Anderson, midfielder/forward
In late October, Anderson suffered a stress fracture to his back.
Joelinton, midfielder/forward
After a series of hamstring injuries, Joelinton tweaked a thigh tendon against Sunderland on January 6. Underwent surgery.
Harvey Barnes, winger
When running against Sheffield United on September 24, Barnes suffered an injury below his toe. Felt renewed pain in early December and did not return until February.
Miguel Almiron, winger
Came on against West Ham on March 30 but was forced off 11 minutes later after twisting his knee crossing.
Jacob Murphy, winger
Came on against Borussia Dortmund on October 25, landed awkwardly and dislocated his shoulder. Returned 10 days later against Arsenal but dislocated his shoulder again 16 minutes after coming on and had an operation.
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Callum Wilson, striker
Had hamstring and calf problems in November and January respectively. Suffered a pectoral injury when jostling with a Nottingham Forest defender on February 10.
Alexander Isak, striker
Had three short spells out with a recurring groin injury in October, December and February.
In the table below, an asterisk (*) denotes that the player is still injured, so the number of matches missed could rise.
| Player | Injury | Date of injury | Matches missed |
|---|---|---|---|
Shoulder | December 2 | 24* | |
Calf | March 2 | 5* | |
Ankle | March 30 | 2* | |
Hamstring | November 1 | 24 | |
Achilles tendonitis | Late-March | 3* | |
Back | November 4 | 7 | |
Knee | September 16 | 17 | |
Knee | March 16 | 3* | |
Knee | March 26 | 2* | |
Hamstring/Achilles | Mid-August | 12 | |
Achilles | November 11 | 18 | |
Ankle | November 11 | 4 | |
Back | Late-March | 3* | |
Back | Late-October | 25 | |
Thigh | January 6 | 14* | |
Foot | September 24 | 26 | |
Knee | March 30 | 2* | |
Shoulder | October 25 | 2 | |
Shoulder | November 4 | 15 | |
Hamstring | November 4 | 6 | |
Calf | December 19 | 5 | |
Chest | February 10 | 9* | |
Groin | October 21 | 5 | |
Groin | December 13 | 2 | |
Groin | January 30 | 3 |
“You just ask, ‘How?’”
Reading back through this list reinforces a simple point: Newcastle have had zero luck. Pope dives for a ball and dislocates a shoulder. Murphy lands awkwardly and does the same. Burn breaks his back. Barnes pushes off and damages his toe, Livramento gets hit by a ball, Wilson’s pectoral tear; this is misfortune that cannot be legislated for.
“You just ask, ‘How?’. You’re scratching your head going, ‘How has that happened?’,” says one person familiar with the situation who, like others quoted in this piece, was speaking anonymously to protect their own positions.
If last season, when Newcastle finished fourth, felt like one of those serene years when everything went right, this has been the opposite. From director level down to the pitch, there is acknowledgement that Newcastle have had a glut of freak injuries, the effect of which has been significant, snaking out into every area of the team.
Pope’s absence, in particular, has had enormous consequences, not just on results and performances — their points per game has dropped from 1.9 to 1.2 — but the way Newcastle set up and play.
When the time has come for Howe to ask his medical staff how long a player will be missing for, the answer has rarely been positive. “You can handle two or three weeks, but it’s been a month, two months, three and then you’re losing the battle,” the person says.
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Sandro Tonali’s situation has been difficult to stomach. The Italian was viewed as a game-changing signing, bought from AC Milan for £55million ($69.5m), but since October 26 has been unavailable to play after breaching gambling regulations. Internally, his loss is not played down. “Sandro’s ban has absolutely f***ed us,” the person says. “That suspension has caused us huge, huge issues.” The argument is that with Tonali, Newcastle would have had an extra midfielder. Instead, Longstaff and Miley have played too much.
The counter-point is that had he been available, Tonali may not have escaped injury himself.
One of football’s greatest truisms applies here, too. “There’s no such thing as bad luck. I think you create your own luck,” Howe said recently, responding to the suggestion that his methods, his style, have contributed to Newcastle’s injury record. “We play a really high-intensity style and a real physical game. Naturally, if we didn’t play that style, the physical cost on our players would be less.”
When Ben Dinnery of Premier Injuries posted Howe’s fitness figures per top-flight season on X, he used the phrase “Injuries follow the manager”. It is a theory proposed in some medical circles and, with Howe, there is a trend throughout his time at Bournemouth and Newcastle.
| Team | Season | Time-loss injuries | Exposure | Incidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2015-16 | 30 | 3,990 | 7.5 | |
2016-17 | 32 | 3,720 | 8.6 | |
2017-18 | 32 | 3,990 | 8.0 | |
2018-19 | 31 | 3,870 | 8.0 | |
2019-20 | 33 | 3,810 | 8.7 | |
2021-22 | 22 | 2,520 | 8.7 | |
2022-23 | 39 | 4,170 | 9.4 | |
2023-24 | 32 | 3,660 | 8.7 |
Premier Injuries work out the volume of injuries a team has suffered per 1,000 minutes played across the season, or “incidence” rate. In every top-flight season Howe has overseen, his sides have had an incidence rate of at least 7.5 per 1,000 minutes. Throughout five seasons at Bournemouth, it peaked at 8.7 and his average was 8.2. Across three campaigns at Newcastle, 8.7 is the lowest it has been, twice, while it reached 9.4 last season and his average is 8.9.
The bigger picture here is cost versus benefit. At Bournemouth, the club Howe led through the divisions over two spells and kept in the Premier League for five consecutive seasons — the most successful spell in their history — the challenge was to be fitter and smarter than bigger, richer, more-established teams. It was the only way they could compete.
At Newcastle, who were second-bottom when Howe was appointed, there was extraordinary improvement in players like Joelinton, Longstaff, Fabian Schar and Almiron, stalwarts in the side that avoided relegation, then finished fourth and reached the Carabao Cup final last season. They were aggressive, full of running and pressed hard, which put their bodies under greater strain.
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In any “normal” season, that risk would be factored into a club’s thinking, with an expectation that they could compensate for injuries. For Newcastle, it has been anything other than normal, with greater demands placed on a shrinking pool, whose entire way of working is predicated on a fitness they have been grasping for.
“When you look at some of the injuries we’ve had — and we’ve analysed and reanalysed — you can’t put them into any category other than bad luck, even though I don’t really believe in it,” Howe said (slightly confusingly).
The knee-jerk response is to cast blame. It must be the manager’s methods, the narrative goes. Or, what the hell are the medical staff actually doing?
Yet according to Premier League Injuries, Newcastle are actually mid-table when it comes to soft-tissue problems, which are often viewed as being the most “preventable” of injuries.
Newcastle have suffered from 16 soft-tissue injuries leading to 562 days lost and their incidence per 1,000 minutes is 4.4, precisely the top flight’s average. Their days lost to soft-tissue injuries is marginally higher than the average, however, which is 533 days.
| Team | Exposure | Soft-tissue injuries | Days lost | Incidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2,880 | 21 | 953 | 7.3 | |
2,790 | 19 | 766 | 6.8 | |
3,090 | 21 | 667 | 6.8 | |
2,820 | 17 | 445 | 6.0 | |
2,970 | 17 | 667 | 5.7 | |
3,510 | 19 | 811 | 5.4 | |
3,480 | 17 | 687 | 4.9 | |
3,510 | 17 | 611 | 4.8 | |
3,180 | 14 | 446 | 4.4 | |
3,660 | 16 | 562 | 4.4 | |
3,000 | 12 | 490 | 4.0 | |
3,420 | 13 | 494 | 3.8 | |
3,300 | 12 | 466 | 3.6 | |
3,990 | 14 | 358 | 3.5 | |
2,880 | 10 | 410 | 3.5 | |
3,690 | 12 | 375 | 3.3 | |
3,690 | 12 | 372 | 3.3 | |
3,090 | 10 | 266 | 3.2 | |
2,940 | 8 | 624 | 2.7 | |
3,600 | 7 | 192 | 1.9 |
For hamstring problems only, Newcastle have fared even better. They have had six, totalling 229 days lost, with an incidence of 1.6 per 1,000 minutes. The top-flight average is 2.1, which is 23.8 per cent higher. The Premier League average for days lost is also higher, at 271.
At Bournemouth, however, that was not the case. Injuries, especially hamstring problems, plagued Howe’s squad during 2019-20, contributing greatly to their relegation. The only regular senior player not to miss a game through injury that season was Dominic Solanke.
In early 2020, Howe declared that he had “never had a smaller group of players to pick from” and that Bournemouth had “made mistakes” that “we have to learn from quickly”, including avoiding re-injuries.
Similar messages have been repeated by Howe at Newcastle as the problems have mounted.
“Unprecedented?”
To everyone inside the Newcastle bubble, their crisis has felt especially acute. To discover whether their problems have been unusually chronic, we must dig into the numbers.
Using data provided by Premier Injuries, we can see where Newcastle rank relative to their top-flight rivals. The data only features reported time-loss injuries — those which have caused a player to miss at least one match — up to and including gameweek 28, preceding the March international break, which does not include more recent injuries to Lascelles, Almiron and Livramento.
The first table shows time-loss injury data. Newcastle had suffered 32 separate injuries. That was the most in the Premier League, 28 per cent higher than average (25).
| Team | Time-loss injuries |
|---|---|
32 | |
30 | |
30 | |
30 | |
30 | |
29 | |
29 | |
29 | |
28 | |
25 | |
25 | |
24 | |
23 | |
23 | |
22 | |
20 | |
19 | |
18 | |
17 | |
17 |
When it comes to cumulative days lost, Newcastle are also at the summit.
Howe’s players have missed a combined 1,426 days due to fitness problems. That is a staggering 51.1 per cent above the Premier League average (944).
| Team | Days lost to injury |
|---|---|
1,426 | |
1,339 | |
1,280 | |
1,257 | |
1,238 | |
1,208 | |
1,136 | |
1,095 | |
1,088 | |
931 | |
929 | |
894 | |
885 | |
843 | |
665 | |
636 | |
611 | |
611 | |
418 | |
385 |
For the average number of absentees per top-flight game, Newcastle rank joint-third at 6.2 players, 37.7 per cent higher than the Premier League-wide average (4.5). Only Chelsea (8.0) and Manchester United (6.8) were above Howe’s team, yet both have far deeper squads.
| Team | Average absentees per game |
|---|---|
8.0 | |
6.8 | |
6.2 | |
6.2 | |
5.9 | |
5.6 | |
5.2 | |
5.1 | |
5.1 | |
5.1 | |
4.9 | |
4.4 | |
3.9 | |
3.7 | |
3.6 | |
3.5 | |
2.4 | |
2.3 | |
1.5 | |
1.4 |
Evidently, the volume and severity of Newcastle’s injuries have been high. Yet Premier Injuries uses injury incidence per 1,000 minutes to provide a direct comparison between clubs who have played a varying number of fixtures. According to Dinnery, greater minutes causes a greater risk of injury.
In the table below, the third column, “exposure”, outlines a club’s minutes played across all competitions. The final column, “incidence”, is the volume of injuries each club has suffered per 1,000 minutes played.
Interestingly, Newcastle have only the sixth-highest occurrence of 8.7. Even so, they are still 12.9 per cent above the top-flight average (7.7).
| Team | Time-loss injuries | Exposure | Incidence |
|---|---|---|---|
30 | 2,880 | 10.4 | |
29 | 2,820 | 10.3 | |
29 | 2,970 | 9.8 | |
29 | 3,090 | 9.4 | |
25 | 2,790 | 9.0 | |
32 | 3,660 | 8.7 | |
30 | 3,480 | 8.6 | |
30 | 3,510 | 8.5 | |
24 | 2,880 | 8.3 | |
28 | 3,510 | 8.0 | |
23 | 2,940 | 7.8 | |
30 | 3,990 | 7.5 | |
23 | 3,180 | 7.2 | |
25 | 3,690 | 6.8 | |
22 | 3,690 | 6.0 | |
20 | 3,420 | 5.8 | |
18 | 3,090 | 5.8 | |
19 | 3,300 | 5.8 | |
17 | 3,000 | 5.7 | |
17 | 3,600 | 4.7 |
Despite injuries dominating the narrative throughout the present campaign, that figure is actually down on last season, when Newcastle’s incidence per 1,000 minutes was 9.4, 8.0 per cent higher.
How is this possible? Their fixture list was less dense last season and the majority of key players avoided significant injuries simultaneously. This time it has involved the entire spine of the team and several limbs, all at once.
“It feels like a never-ending cycle”
Longstaff calls it “demoralising”, and then checks himself. “Maybe that’s excessive,” he says, attempting to describe playing for an injury-ravaged team while being hampered by injury himself.
“When you look around our meeting room and everyone’s there, you think, ‘Yeah, we’ll win tomorrow’,” Longstaff says. “Then there’s times you walk in and there’s six, seven empty seats … It can be tough.
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“We go ahead in games, someone gets injured and it’s like a sucker punch, then someone comes on and gets injured and it feels like a never-ending cycle. Ultimately, we’re a team — our greatest strength is in each other, how we can chop and change and the performance levels never drop — and this just takes the life out of us.
“The way we play is so front-foot and aggressive, but it’s hard to do it every game in those circumstances, especially if you’re not feeling 100 per cent. That makes it worse.”
This is the lesser-seen element of Newcastle’s story; not just the players missing, but those hobbling through to help the team. When Longstaff says “our greatest strength is each other” this is what he means, even if sometimes it can be to the detriment of personal performance.
“This season, more than any other in my career, I’ve had to go, ‘Look, we need you to play, even though I know it’s not ideal’,” Howe has said.
In the abstract, Newcastle supporters will likely be proud of that attitude. Longstaff has battled through, as has Burn, who returned “weeks early” from a broken back he suffered in November.
“It was what we needed,” Burn says. “It did take me time to get my rhythm back. Ideally, I could have done with another few weeks, but I had to push through it. It was about getting up to speed and trying to help the lads.”
In the less abstract, injuries inevitably make games harder to win and chip away at confidence and consistency.
For Longstaff, this has now been a full year of discomfort, far from ideal for someone whose game is based on ceaseless running. It is not just matches; it affects the day-to-day. “Sean needs to train regularly to get his best rhythm and that’s been disrupted,” Howe said.
Longstaff ploughs forward. “We played at Everton last April and I basically broke my foot,” he says. “I played in the last home game of the season (a draw with Leicester, which secured Champions League qualification), when it was still pretty much broken and then, because of that, it didn’t heal properly.
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“We came back for pre-season and we bring Sandro in and it’s like … well, you don’t want to lose your spot in the team. I did lose it because I wasn’t fully fit and then went through a spell where it got better and I got back into the team and thought I was playing really well. Then I got injured again at Bournemouth in November.
“It was a 10-week ankle injury and I came back in four. It’s hard enough playing with one bad foot, but when you’ve got a left foot that’s sore and a right ankle that doesn’t move properly, it’s never going to be the easiest, especially at this level. It is what it is. I’ll always put the team ahead of myself and people will either see that and appreciate it or they won’t.”
Longtaff had an injection last month to keep playing, to keep running. West Ham on March 30 was “the first time in a while I’ve been excited to come and play, just because I know I wasn’t going to be in pain.”
“Your whole way of working changes”
Injuries to the extent Newcastle have suffered affect everything, not just who can play but how they play. It infiltrates training, tactics, substitutions, competition for places and player psychology. In those circumstances, intensity only wanes.
During a Champions League fixture, with options limited, one Newcastle player asked coaching staff how long he was expected to stay on. The whole thing, came the exasperated reply. There was no other option. The risk is burnout; once you get two or three crucial injuries you become susceptible to more because resources become stretched. Howe’s resources were never chunky enough anyway.
At Newcastle, this scenario has become entrenched; they know they cannot possibly recover their full strength until next season.
In August, when Newcastle blew away Aston Villa 5-1, Anthony Gordon, Isak, Tonali, Guimaraes and Almiron started, replaced by Barnes, Wilson, Anderson, Longstaff and Jacob Murphy. This was the blueprint, with hungry players being pushed and replaced by angry players, full of running and aggression.
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Against Everton this month, Howe selected two goalkeepers for his bench, something he has done 15 times this season. Against Chelsea in November, he named four goalkeepers. At PSG, James Huntley, Ben Parkinson and Michael Ndiweni, who have two fleeting substitute appearances between them, were among the truncated list of replacements. Against Everton, it was Joe White, Parkinson and Amadou Diallo.
In Paris, Newcastle conceded a 97th-minute penalty. Against Everton, it came in the 88th minute. Howe could do little to influence proceedings, while those playing had no choice but to conserve energy. This is a pattern.
By December, Howe was effectively stuck with the same XI and results dipped. When players did return, it was often sooner than desirable, fit enough to play but not sharp enough to be at their best. Psychologically that can damage the player’s confidence. Physically, there is jeopardy.
Longstaff has persevered, but Murphy came back from his dislocated shoulder and lasted 16 minutes as a substitute before doing it again. Willock continues to struggle with an Achilles problem that has ravaged his campaign. Botman is the big one.
It becomes self-fulfilling.
Here is an alternative, unavailable XI for that Everton game: Pope; Trippier, Lascelles, Botman, Livramento; Miley, Tonali, Joelinton; Almiron, Wilson, Gordon.
As the table shows, in early November, Newcastle saw a week-on-week 50 per cent increase in unavailable players from six to nine, and that was basically maintained until February. The figures decreased, but have ramped up again.
| Gameweek | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Player absences | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 11 | 6.6 |
“It’s touched absolutely everything,” someone familiar with the situation says. “When you get injuries en masse, your whole way of working changes. It has to.”
“You can’t force a player to have an operation”
If there is one player whose fitness issues typify Newcastle’s campaign, it is Botman. Howe describes it as “quite a complex story” — a typical understatement.
Barnes’ foot injury — which saw him tear the ligaments under his toe and is unique in football, leading to the medical team seeking rehabilitation advice from other sports — arguably warrants further inspection, but none have been quite as bizarre, or played out quite as publicly, as Botman’s ACL issues. It is the saga within which everything collides.
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It was unfortunate that Botman suffered the initial injury, jarring his knee against Brentford on September 16, but it is hard to argue that subsequent events were unfortunate, albeit we have the benefit of hindsight.
For a start, Botman played two further matches, scoring against Sheffield United, without realising he had damaged his ACL; how this is possible has never been explained, although Botman later declared he was not in pain. He told Sky Sports that his knee then “blew up” after Sheffield United, with scans showing “some big damage”.
Desperate to avoid an operation that would sideline him for an extended period, the centre-back saw multiple specialists.
Some medical professionals within sport advise against this, believing that if you search for long enough you will find an expert who will say something you may want to hear. Yet it is also common for clubs, players and their representatives to have their own specialists who they trust and seek advice from.
At least one specialist advised that Botman rest for two to four months. An alternative view was he should have an operation to rectify the problem, likely sidelining him for the remainder of 2023-24.
With Botman, the “conflicting reports”, as Howe termed it, created a confused picture. There was not even a consensus on the extent of the injury. “Some people said it was a total rupture, others said it wasn’t,” Botman said in January. Publicly, Howe refused to be drawn on the specifics of Botman’s injury at that stage, adding to the scepticism surrounding its severity.
Last month, Howe stressed that Newcastle’s “medical team” had “advised” Botman to get surgery. Botman was keen to keep playing, though, and Howe insisted the call was ultimately “player-led”, even if Newcastle then “backed the decision”.
During his rehabilitation, Botman fully rested for a period, having struggled initially when the intensity of his training was temporarily increased. Newcastle took a cautious approach afterwards, gradually building his sessions until, after precisely three months out, Botman returned as a substitute against Fulham on December 16.
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“The operation would have kept me out for nine months but I’m back and feeling like my old self again,” Botman said in January. “So it seems like I made the right choice.”
Yet, aside from a couple of encouraging displays, Botman did not come back the same accomplished performer. He played 20 times but his movement appeared impaired, his confidence dipped and opponents targeted his channel.
At the Etihad on March 16, Botman tweaked his knee and was forced off. Four days later, Newcastle confirmed he would undergo surgery and suggested a new injury had occurred. Howe later declared that Botman “aggravated the initial problem” and the expectation is he will miss much of 2024.
Understandably, some supporters have raised concerns about how Botman’s situation was managed. Botman faces having a significant portion of back-to-back campaigns hampered by his ACL problem.
In retrospect, the feeling is that lessons should be learned, yet Botman’s own determination to avoid an operation clouds that conclusion. “After fighting so hard to avoid this step” surgery was “difficult to accept”, he wrote on Instagram.
That raises an ethical conundrum. “We always try to guide players but ultimately it’s their bodies and they have to make the final decision,” Howe said. “You can’t force a player to have an operation.”
A fortnight on from Botman aggravating his injury, Lascelles was substituted against West Ham with another ACL injury. He immediately underwent surgery and will also miss “six to nine months”.
“We’re always trying to improve”
“No one knows what goes on internally at any football club. People make outside opinions based on what they think may have happened.”
Howe was vehement in his defence of Newcastle’s medical department last month when questions were posed about Botman. And the head coach addressed an important point: most fans do not actually know who the medical staff are and how decisions are made.
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Dan Hodges, Newcastle’s head of performance, joined from Bournemouth. He leads Howe’s sports-science operation, analysing training and match data, tailoring individual and team sessions.
Hodges is trusted by the head coach, given their long-term relationship, and understands inherently what Howe expects from his players physically. Nick Grantham, the head of strength and conditioning, who pre-dated Howe, and Liam Mason, the lead sports scientist, who joined in 2022, work with Hodges.
If Hodges is essentially the bridge between the coaching and medical staff, and was brought in by Howe, there is the separate but connected medical team. Paul Catterson, the club doctor, has been in place since 2009 and is highly regarded.
The physios include Dani Marti, who arrived under Rafa Benitez, Dave Galley, who joined in 2022, and Sean Beech. He is well-respected yet went viral when he stretched Gordon’s leg during the Chelsea defeat last month, leading the forward to yelp in pain. To the untrained observer, it may have looked like an embodiment of the club’s malaise, but Beech was in fact conducting the precise test any physio should to determine the extent of the issue.
When it comes to head physio, Newcastle have had three since Howe’s arrival. Derek Wright, who had been at the club for 38 years, left in July 2022 and was replaced by Danny Murphy that October. On December 31 last year, Newcastle announced that Murphy had left “following an extended period of paternity leave”.
When asked about Murphy’s departure in February, following news Jonny King would arrive from Leicester as senior physio, Howe said: “We’re always trying to improve the way we do things. That process will never change. Whether it’s playing style or staff we’re always trying to move the club forward and that was with that in mind.”
King spent a decade at Bournemouth and is another staff member who Howe knows inherently.
An accusation sometimes levelled at Howe during difficult periods results-wise is that he surrounds himself with people he knows. In September 2022, a former colleague told The Athletic that while Howe cherishes “familiarity” and “people he knows he can trust”, he will not hand out “jobs for the boys” and only ever brings in staff who he believes improve the setup.
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The big idea post-takeover and post-Dan Ashworth, the sporting director who is now on gardening leave before joining Manchester United, is that departments are no longer siloed and that they work more cohesively.
Under Mike Ashley’s ownership, a key first-team player picked up a muscular injury, having conducted extra specialised sessions with coaches post-training, for which the sports-science team had not been informed. Each department, from medical to coaching staff, outlined why it was not their own fault so that blame could not be apportioned, rather than working together to ensure the root cause — a lack of communication — was addressed.
This has changed for the better, yet friction is inherent between departments in all institutions.
Those in the sports medicine profession talk about head coaches having to “pick their poison”. They acknowledge that it is the coach who is ultimately under pressure to make crucial decisions — choices that go beyond merely conditioning or medical advice about a specific player.
For example, a member of the medical department may highlight that a midfielder is at greater risk of injury due to recent workload, but the manager may have no other players to select in that position for a key game.
So head coaches rarely make black or white calls but are often dealing in shades of grey and must then make a judgement based on the information provided from several departments.
At Newcastle, the medical team has grown significantly since the takeover and continues to expand. Enhancements will be made and the department will be bolstered further.
“We have to improve what we deliver for the players. I would be saying that if we didn’t have injuries this season,” Howe said. “Football never stands still.”
“Everybody came home physically done in”
It starts at the beginning. As Newcastle attempt to understand why they have been struck so hard by injuries and what they could have done to avoid it, a couple of things stand out.
First, their pre-season tour to the USA is viewed by some as the “catalyst” for everything that has followed. It was not a quiet training camp where fitness could be honed, but a hectic three-game, six-day stint against quality opposition in Aston Villa, Chelsea and Brighton as part of the Premier League’s Summer Series, surrounded by internal flights to and from Atlanta, their base, Philadelphia and New Jersey, and full of promotional events.
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The travelling was “ridiculous,” the games were too hard and compacted and players were placed under physical pressure too early — “a logistical nightmare” says one person with knowledge of the situation. “Everybody came home physically done in and we’ve never quite recovered. Everything unravelled from there.”
This viewpoint is informing Newcastle’s discussions about where to stage this summer’s pre-season, although the balance is earning revenue which, of course, Newcastle need.
This is why they are heading straight to Australia in May to play Tottenham Hotspur and an A-League All-Star team in post-season friendlies. In footballing terms, inflicting more travel and game time on fatigued bodies, it is a ludicrous decision. In a PSR landscape, they had to say yes. “I don’t think it’s something that, being honest, in my position you’re saying ‘I want to go’. But I understand the club’s position,” Howe said.
A year ago, a senior figure told The Athletic that Newcastle were not equipped for the demands of the Champions League. “Are we ready for it? No. Is our squad big enough? No,” they said. Ultimately, what they did in the summer window has not helped very much; Tonali is exiled, Barnes was sidelined all winter, while Livramento (now injured) and Hall have not nailed down regular places.
In January, when Howe needed help most, heightened concerns about PSR meant Newcastle signed no one; rather than increasing the size of their squad, they have effectively contracted.
Then there is the Champions League itself, and reaching the quarter-finals of both domestic cup competitions; new territory for almost everybody, Howe included.
Those within sports medicine circles stress how much planning a specific “game model”, essentially a team’s playing style, and identifying the correct “training strategy” — the schedule throughout a week — significantly differ for a club competing in Europe.
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“When you’re doing that for the first time, it’s not easy,” Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola said last month.
The expectation is that Howe, staff and players will be more conditioned to the increased demands in future seasons. To truly comprehend how to cope with a European schedule, everyone inside Newcastle had to experience it.
That idea of not being ready, of taking part in events like the Summer Series in order to expand their profile, speaks of where Newcastle are as a club. Finishing fourth last season and the (notional) wealth and ambition of their owners has created a mirage. The team sped way ahead of its infrastructure.
Internally, Newcastle acknowledge they are “light years away from those clubs”. After years of neglect — “It was awful,” Amanda Staveley told The Athletic recently — they have spent around £10m on updating their training ground, which is now seen as on a par with lower-half Premier League level. Improvements include hydrotherapy and plunge pools, but unlike Leicester City, a Championship club, they do not have swimming pools. Their protocols for recovery are not best in class.
Newcastle are investigating the spring of their training pitches and whether they are creating problems for players’ joints, something Howe also oversaw at Bournemouth when there was a flurry of knee-ligament injuries in 2018-19, with Wilson suffering two, for example.
Newcastle are still at the beginning of their story post-takeover, re-stocking and building up their infrastructure and football departments. Not every appointment can be perfect or perfect for their particular circumstances.
If Danny Murphy is a case in point, the loss of Ashworth is the biggest example. The sporting director is precisely who should be — and should have been — overseeing this kind of forensic analysis.
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“We analyse everything,” Howe said in February. “By ‘we’, I include everyone at the club. No individual, no individual department, we’re all in it together. We have to look at that, respond and improve.”
It is easy to forget that this is a new project. Newcastle are playing catch-up and everybody is learning on the job: about the team, about each other, about playing three times a week at the very top level.
“We still have so far to go,” says the source. For now at least, they are limping there.