Newcastle United's massive recruitment drive revealed

Newcastle United have completed a major recruitment drive at the club's academy.

According to Training Ground Guru, 13 new staff have been appointed by sporting director Dan Ashworth, who was brought to the club last year.

Ashworth, according to the report, has appointed Paul Midgley (head of youth recruitment), Paul McLaren (head of UK scouting 13-18), Delroy Ebanks (lead scout south), Andy Basterfield (North West regional scout), Dean Edwards (North West regional scout), Wayne Spooner (Yorkshire regional scout), Amos Mukiza (Midlands regional scout), Ross Thorpe (Midlands regional scout), Abdul Habib (London/South East regional scout), Dan Risk (London/South regional scout), And Gill (South West regional scout), Eddie Black (U9-U14 lead professional club scout) and Claire Burrors (recruitment operations manager).

Other staff already in place at the facility have had job changes to fit into the new structure.

Structural change

Ashworth, previously at Brighton and Hove Albion, spoke about the need to "upscale" departments late last year following the October 2021 takeover of the club.

"I think that everybody would admit that there are certain areas of the club that have been run on more of a skeleton framework, and a survival basis, like 'if we can stay in the Premier League – that's fine or enough'," said Ashworth.

"That's not enough any more. So, consequently, you have to upscale the majority of departments and facilities in order to try to achieve our goals, which are to finish higher up the league, to compete for trophies, and aspirational targets the trajectory the club is going towards over the next few years.

"So, consequently, there’s a building out of structures and capacity in order to be able to achieve that.

"Some things are probably stocked and fit for purpose. Other areas need improvement in terms of head count. Some, it's a facilities issue. So the training ground is going through a period of improving our capacity.

"That's not only to fit more people in there, it's to improve it for players on recovery, on diet and nutrition. A lot of money has gone into new training pitches, for example.

"There's some short-term fixes you can have. But there's also some longer-term – a purpose-built training ground that can incorporate an academy, women’s and first-team. That may or may not be coming down the track.

"That's more the long-term, those are processes that are harder to fix."