A barren run against Sunderland should provide added motivation after crushing loss in Barcelona amid awkward questions off the pitch
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lmost two decades have passed since Newcastle’s former owner, Mike Ashley, celebrated a Tyne-Wear derby win by gathering a group of club employees together and leading a conga into the St James’ Park boardroom. Sunderland’s then chair, Niall Quinn, and his fellow executives were already inside and responded with polite smiles as they, outwardly at least, failed to take offence. Perhaps fortunately, the visiting manager, Roy Keane, was elsewhere.
Fast forward 18 years and almost regardless of the score when Newcastle host Sunderland on Sunday, the only potential post-match boardroom invasion on the agenda involves a herd of elephants. For no one at Newcastle seems quite ready to spell it out yet, but when Eddie Howe’s team lost 7-2 – 8-3 on aggregate – at Barcelona on Wednesday night and the camouflaging distraction of a Champions League campaign was ripped away, a series of awkward questions resurfaced.
Arguably the biggest elephant in the room is the current war in the Middle East. How might the financial damage sustained by Newcastle’s majority owners, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, affect the club? Will the long delayed announcement of a new training ground at Woolsington Hall, adjacent to the city’s airport, take place now? And what about the heavily postponed decision regarding a potential new stadium? With the Gulf in turmoil will David Hopkinson, Newcastle’s chief executive,stand by his claim, made in December, that Newcastle should rank among the “world’s best clubs” by 2030?
