No contact between Newcastle’s Howe and Mitchell since transfer criticism | Newcastle United

Eddie Howe has not spoken to Paul Mitchell for nine days after the Newcastle sporting director said he had inherited a unclear transfer strategy that was not serving its purpose.

Tensions between Howe and Mitchell have been simmering since the latter’s appointment in early July and while they appear to have reached a truce, it appears fragile. “I’ve had no contact with Paul,” said the Newcastle manager, who insists he is “very, very proud” of every player he helped sign between January 2022 and Mitchell’s arrival. “But I don’t think that’s unusual – we have different roles.”

Mitchell claimed last week that he and Howe were “over-communicating” and spending hours on the phone in the evenings, but Howe said such conversations only took place during a transfer window disrupted by Newcastle’s failed attempt to sign Marc Guéhi from Crystal Palace.

Howe’s main concerns on Friday centred on Mitchell’s suggestion that the transfer strategy the manager was heavily involved in was “unclear” and “unfit for purpose”, with Newcastle reportedly overpaying for certain players. “I think there are a couple of things,” said Howe, who played a key role in recruiting a string of widely admired internationals including Bruno Guimarães, Sven Botman, Kieran Trippier, Anthony Gordon, Alexander Isak and Sandro Tonali.

“I’m very, very proud of every player we signed during that period. It’s very easy to look back at a transfer window and judge the players you signed three years from now. Our goal then was to stay in the Premier League and looking back, that was a good job. I’m very, very proud of the work we did and the players we have now from the legacy of those transfer windows. We love it very much. I think everyone can hold their heads very high.

“I will take responsibility for that, because in the end I was always the one who made the final decision on those contracts… I would definitely like to find a few more players like that. Recruitment is never as easy as everyone thinks.”

As for the so-called “Toon Tax” that Mitchell believed was paid on early signings after the takeover by majority owners from Saudi Arabia, Howe pushed back. “We certainly walked away from deals early on where we thought there was a Newcastle tax,” he said.

Mitchell claimed that, after inheriting transfer plans, he could only play a supporting role this summer, but Howe seemed less certain. “I don’t think it’s right to make individual comments about Paul’s press conference,” he said. “I don’t think that will improve our situation.”

Howe responded similarly when asked about Mitchell’s view that the scouting system was unfit for purpose. “Whatever you think of the scouting structures, I thought the results were very good,” Howe said, somewhat sharply.

Although he refused to accept that Newcastle were in a state of civil war, Howe offered little in the way of an emphatic refutation of the idea. “Civil war?” he said. “Absolutely not, in my experience. But I am cocooned in my work and totally focused on the players and the training.”

Returning to his relationship with Mitchell, Howe dodged a question about where it stood on the “bromance barometer”. “I don’t think it has to be that way,” he said. “It has to be a partnership for the greater good, which is always the football club and getting positive results. I will always fight for something that I believe is for the greater long-term good of the club, but it has to be a partnership. It can’t be one person dictating what happens.”

There have been suggestions that Mitchell, in a bid to reduce injuries, wants Howe to adapt the team’s intense, hard-hitting style of play, but the latter suggested his modus operandi would remain. “That’s the style of play we want,” he said as he prepared for the trip to Wolves on Sunday. “We ask a lot of the players but I think they can deliver. At our best we’re very difficult to play against.”