It has been a busy old summer for Newcastle United fans. As we juggled the varying storylines and controversies that came out of this summer’s World Cup split between the United States of America, Canada and Mexico, Geordies needed to keep one eye on matters closer to home.
After all the years of speculation about his future, 48 year old gaffer Eddie Howe finally moved on and we replaced him with basically unknown Al-Ahli manager Matthias Jaissle, and our build up and preparations for the coming 2026/27 domestic Premier League campaign were disrupted further by the high profile, and incredibly big money, sales of Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes for around the £237 million mark.
For those making early season predictions on the likes of mybettingsites.com, they would have been boosted by the new arrivals of Bazoumana Toure, Sean Steur, Aladji Bamba and Lukas Hornicek and they will have been readily welcomed in to our now depleted first group and fans will be excited to see what they can bring to the side.
Earlier moves for those players in the transfer market have at least given them a better chance of more quickly settling in for when football kicks back of for real this coming Sunday, when we welcome Andoni Iraola’s new Liverpool team to St James’ Park.
Our summer spending has just increased to around the £150 million mark with the capture of Benfica’s Amar Dedic for a reported £30 million, but again for most of the Gallowgate faithful, he is also almost a basic unknown unless you were paying close attention to the World Cup or more naturally follow the wider European game.
The 24 year old has been capped 31 times for country Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was one of the players on show over the summer. The right back is also very well known to our new 38 year old gaffer as they spent some time together at both FC Liefering and Red Bull Salzburg before parting ways.
Having undertaken his medical on Monday and agreed to a new five year contract with us, they will both be looking forward to working together again having previously lifted the Australian title together back in 2023, and in his first full interview with the media, Dedic admitted that reuniting with Jaissle had obviously played a big ‘factor’ in his decision to make the move, as he already knows the gaffer can get the best out of him.
He could prove to be a key addition to the squad, as we naturally needed a replacement for Kieran Trippier, as the veteran left at the end of last season at the expiry of his existing deal with us, and Dedic is likely to be in line to make his competitive debut for us in the Liverpool clash this coming Sunday. Tino Livramento is continuing his own injury recovery following the calf issue he sustained whilst out on duty for Thomas Tuchel’s England side over the summer, and it is expected that he will not return in time for that game – so it could be a bit of a baptism of fire for him given the opening day atmosphere that will be on show on home soil.
Although with that said he has had a taste of the fans before as he was part of the Benfica team that we thumped 3-0 in last season’s Champions League clash, and that should only help him hit the ground running if he does feature as expected.
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