Newcastle United finally parted ways with beleaguered head coach Steve Bruce this week but are believed to be in no hurry to appoint a replacement, with the new owners prepared to take their time in choosing his long-term successor.
Highly-regarded assistant Graeme Jones has been placed in interim charge, for at least their Premier League trip to Crystal Palace today (Saturday) and next week’s home game against Chelsea, while the club have been linked with English managers such as Eddie Howe, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, and have held talks with former Roma coach Paulo Fonseca.
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With Newcastle seemingly in no rush despite being second-bottom of the Premier League and still winless after eight matches, we’ve asked our European and tactics experts to profile some of the coaches they think the club should be looking at, including a couple of left-field options.
Most of their nominees are based abroad, but there are a couple closer to home too…
Paulo Fonseca
It’s odd how many people are willing to overlook Fonseca’s role in taking Roma to the Europa League semi-finals last season, particularly when his team eliminated Ajax in the last eight, only to be knocked out by an expensively assembled Manchester United side.
A class act, Roma were in Serie A’s top four until the Europa League’s knockout phase began and Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jordan Veretout suffered untimely injuries — mitigating circumstances that too often go ignored.
Two years before Fonseca’s 2019 move to Italy, he made headlines at Ukrainian heavyweights Shakhtar Donetsk for keeping his promise to dress up as Zorro for a press conference after ending Manchester City’s 28-game unbeaten run under Pep Guardiola. He led his team to the last 16 of the Champions League in that 2017-18 season, only losing to eventual semi-finalists and future employers Roma on away goals.
If you think this over-qualifies him for an imminent relegation battle with Newcastle, note how he first became a household name in his native Portugal by taking minnows Pacos de Ferreira to a third-place finish behind traditional giants Porto and Benfica in the 2012-13 season.
The Athletic understands 48-year-old Fonseca has already spoken to Newcastle twice about the job, presenting a squad analysis to the club hierarchy.
James Horncastle
Antonio Conte
Conte is the best coach on the market. But, as was the case when Manchester City were taken over in 2008, Newcastle will likely have to start with a lower-profile coach and prove themselves a credible operation before they can appeal to figures of his stature.
This does not mean Newcastle have to put their money where their mouth is and spend lavishly — Conte’s first managerial jobs at Bari, Siena, both in Serie B, and even Juventus were frugal affairs. (Anyone remember all those freebies Juventus used to do?)
As one of the top five coaches in the world, Conte’s reputation brings with it the expectation of winning major honours, and he is well aware of that. He is not going to join a relegation battle when he measures himself against Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel.
The embryonic nature of Newcastle’s executive team, which as presently constituted includes little or no football experience, is not in their favour. Structure is always high on Conte’s list of priorities, and not even the arrival of former colleague Fabio Paratici from Juventus as Tottenham’s new managing director of football was enough to persuade him to join them back in the summer.
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Expect Conte and other elite coaches to wait to see if this new version of Newcastle are for real before taking the plunge.
Manchester City had to go through Mark Hughes to get to Roberto Mancini, and then Manuel Pellegrini to get to Pep Guardiola, who was lured to the Etihad by an executive team of fellow Catalans hired specifically to make the club a more attractive proposition to him.
James Horncastle
Vincenzo Italiano
If Fiorentina and new coach Rino Gattuso hadn’t fallen out, leading him to leave the Florence club before a ball had even been kicked in pre-season, maybe Newcastle would have had a chance of bringing Vincenzo Italiano to St James’ Park.
Italiano is the rising star of Italian coaching, having taken Arzignano to success in the fourth division play-offs, Trapani up from the third to the second and Spezia from the second to Serie A, all in back-to-back years.
After then keeping Spezia up in their first-ever top-flight season and beating the likes of AC Milan and Lazio with a group of homegrown players and a dozen loanees he made care deeply about a club they weren’t ever going to join on a permanent basis, the club’s new US owners tied him down to a new deal.
Unfortunately for them, that contract included a buy-out clause which Fiorentina paid in collateral, throwing in Bulgaria international defender Petko Hristov to sweeten a bitter deal. It has worked out well for Fiorentina. This week, Italiano had his new team poised to move into fourth place, only for hosts Venezia to throw a spanner in the works with a 1-0 win.
Nevertheless, the German-born former midfielder has impressed at the Artemio Franchi. Fiorentina spent decent money again this summer and have Serie A’s reigning Young Player of the Year in Dusan Vlahovic but Italiano has also turned players who didn’t look good enough under his predecessors into functional and effective contributors.
His rotation strategy is so extreme you could be forgiven for thinking he doesn’t care who plays on a Sunday, so confident is he in his ability to manage and improve everyone in a big squad.
Unfortunately for Newcastle, if Fiorentina were unwilling to back down and let Vlahovic go in the summer when Atletico Madrid were prepared to pay €60 million for him, don’t expect owner Rocco Commisso to be swayed by Saudi money into parting with his new manager.
James Horncastle
Roberto Venturato
Now. just hear this hipster out.
Newcastle missed their window in the Italian market when you consider Max Allegri, Maurizio Sarri and Luciano Spalletti were all on sabbaticals last year. Perhaps they would all have been unreachable for the same reasons we outlined above for Conte, and how he’s more likely to watch this space at Manchester United than Newcastle United.
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So, what about Roberto Venturato then? Yes, you’ve probably never heard of him. He’s never coached in Serie A. He’s 58. But Sarri hadn’t worked in Italy’s top flight until he was around that age and wouldn’t have got the chance had he not got Empoli promoted in 2014. Venturato has made a club from the north east — Cittadella — an annual presence in Serie B’s promotion play-offs for the past five years despite operating on a teeny, tiny budget.
Venturato, who speaks English having been born in Australia, made a team recruited entirely from the lower leagues into a slick, high-pressing operation — Cittadella led Serie B in allowing the fewest passes per defensive action last season.
If they’d beaten Verona in the play-off final two years ago, maybe he’d be a household name and be moving on to bigger and better things. Instead, Venturato is free and available, having stepped down at the end of last season. He might be another Sarri hiding in plain sight. He might not. SNAP HIM UP.
It’s not like Newcastle have any superstars with big egos yet.
James Horncastle
Ruben Amorim
It wasn’t so long ago that Lisbon’s Sporting were an unmitigated disaster.
Cast your mind back to 2018 when their ultras stormed their training ground, enraged by the team missing out on Champions League qualification by losing on the final day of the season, which allowed city rivals Benfica to pip them.
High-profile players ripped up their contracts and the team’s star, Bruno Fernandes, was sold to Manchester United not too long afterwards.
Sporting turned things around in one fell swoop in March of last year. Their new president identified Ruben Amorim as the next big thing in Portuguese coaching, even though he’d only been promoted from managing Braga’s B team two months earlier, and decided he had to have him whatever the cost.
The €10 million buy-out clause in Amorim’s contract with Braga was activated and, in his first full season, the 36-year-old just led Sporting to their first league title since 2001-02 — when Phil Babb was there.
Unsurprisingly, Amorim was handed a new contract earlier this year which will make him even more expensive to extract.
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But money shouldn’t be a problem for the richest club in the world.
James Horncastle
Leonardo Jardim
Remember him? Five seasons ago, Leonardo Jardim pulled off the incredible feat of leading Monaco to a Champions League semi-final and to their first Ligue 1 title since 2000.
This was after Dmitry Rybolovlev, the club’s owner, had withdrawn from lavishing millions on the team, choosing instead to invest in youth.
Jardim promoted a 17-year-old Kylian Mbappe to the first team and restored the once-brilliant Radamel Falcao to levels many thought were behind him after seeing those underwhelming loan spells at Manchester United and Chelsea. He also polished a gem Monaco found in Benfica’s academy named Bernardo Silva, to say nothing of a Brazilian they initially took on loan from a far less famous Portuguese club, Rio Ave — a certain Fabinho.
It’s curious that Jardim never made the next step to manage a member of the footballing elite when he was at the peak of his powers. While it’s true he did preside over a quite sensational array of talent, it was no mean feat beating Paris Saint-Germain to that title in 2017, particularly given his first Monaco team had been broken up a couple of years earlier after Dimitar Berbatov, Geoffrey Kondogbia and company had dumped Arsenal out of the Champions League.
After a second spell with Monaco having been replaced by and then, just three months later, replacing Thierry Henry in 2018-19, Jardim now finds himself managing the Al-Hilal club in… Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh.
The mind also turns to Andre Villas-Boas, who is available and was mentored by Newcastle royalty Sir Bobby Robson at Porto. But, as he told The Athletic earlier this year, he cares little for the “bullshit” that swirls around the Premier League and wants to coach a national team next.
James Horncastle
Francesco Farioli
Still only 32, Francesco Farioli was the goalkeeper coach for Roberto De Zerbi, whose cult status as Italy’s Marcelo Bielsa has people from Brescia to Benevento hunting for streams so they can watch his Shakhtar Donetsk side play every week.
Farioli was integral to the implementation of De Zerbi’s style, because of the emphasis placed on inviting pressure and then playing through it with intricate, stylish passing patterns from deep.
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He has since struck out on his own in Turkey, gaining experience as an assistant at Alanyaspor last season before taking the job at Fatih Karagumruk in March. They have been a revelation in the early months of the new top-flight season, with an eclectic mix of players who probably wouldn’t look out of place at Newcastle — Medhi Benatia, Lucas Biglia, Ahmed Musa, Andrea Bertolacci, Yann Karamoh… Might be best to overlook Sunderland hero Fabio Borini, though.
Only four points behind top of the table Trabzonspor after nine games, Farioli is succeeding in giving this small team from Istanbul a modern identity very much in step with the latest trends in European football.
James Horncastle
Monchi… and Julen Lopetegui
The most obvious example for Newcastle’s new Saudi owners to follow must be Manchester City, where, after some initial fiddling around, the Abu-Dhabi owners went hard on the Barcelona model — recruiting CEO Ferran Soriano and sporting director Txiki Begiristain, then a host of other executives and coaches, before finally getting Guardiola onto their bench.
Barcelona are a pretty unique club, and the regime at St James’ Park may not have the patience to wait over a decade to get all the pieces in place. Another option might be to look at Spain’s best-run club, with the handy benefit that the Sevilla ‘model’ is really just one person — sporting director Monchi.
Monchi’s huge transfer-market experience, contacts network and reams of information on players around the world would be a great help in quickly identifying targets who can incrementally improve the team through the coming transfer windows. And he could bring with him coach Julen Lopetegui — who has shown interest in coaching in England before. Lopetegui (below) also has previous in leaving a job in a flash when a better offer comes along, taking the Real Madrid job while Spain coach on the brink of the 2018 World Cup finals.
It did not go well the last time Monchi left Sevilla, for Roma in 2017, but the ambitious Andalucian would surely in theory at least like the idea of having unlimited resources to demonstrate he can operate at the very top level of the market.
Ongoing boardroom turmoil at Sevilla might even provide an opportunity that can be quickly grasped.
Dermot Corrigan
Xabi Alonso
Xabi Alonso is definitely going to be managing at the very top level at some point, and Newcastle’s new brains trust should be very interested in getting him on board right now.
Everyone who knew Alonso as a player always predicted he would become a top manager, and he learned from the best as he went along picking up tips from minds as successful and diverse as John Toshack, Rafa Benitez, Luis Aragones, Jose Mourinho, Vicente Del Bosque, Carlo Ancelotti and Guardiola.
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After hanging up his old-school boots, the Basque spent a season in Real Madrid’s youth system, coaching their under-19s. He then surprised some by returning to his first club, Real Sociedad, guiding their B team full of home-grown products to promotion to Spain’s second tier in his second season.
The echoes with Guardiola’s career are pretty clear now— and like the Manchester City manager, Alonso’s next step might well be to take over as the senior side at his boyhood club. That route looks blocked off for now at Sociedad though, as incumbent Imanol Alguacil led the team to their first trophy in 33 years with the 2019-20 Copa del Rey, and currently has them top of La Liga.
Given Alonso’s obvious intelligence and careful career planning to date, he may need a lot of persuading to take a sudden leap into such an unknown and unknowable situation at St James’ Park.
It might depend on just how tempting the offer is.
Dermot Corrigan
Ernesto Valverde
He may not have the fame or notoriety of many of the managers linked with the Newcastle vacancy but few coaches anywhere around Europe can match Ernesto Valverde’s CV or experience.
Valverde has taken charge of over 700 games at seven clubs, showing an ability to build teams and get results at many different levels and environments. He won the Spanish Supercopa with Athletic Bilbao, three Greek championships at Olympiakos and back to back La Liga titles with Barcelona (an achievement which looks even better now after the struggles of their subsequent coaches Quique Setien and Ronald Koeman).
The 57-year-old is not one to court publicity, but he is a very capable and determined character. He speaks good English, and is currently enjoying life without a club, concentrating on other interests including photography.
Most importantly, maybe, Valverde showed at Barcelona that he can get on with the job of winning games while ignoring spectacular events elsewhere at his club.
Such an ability to focus and compartmentalise will surely be required of whoever does become Newcastle’s next manager.
Dermot Corrigan
Edin Terzic
Edin Terzic was only in charge of Borussia Dortmund for five months last season, but the 38-year-old left his interim-coach post as one of the most in-demand managers in Germany. Thanks to him, a side that had lacked balance and vigour under predecessor Lucien Favre rallied to play one of their best games in years in the Champions League (the quarter-final first leg vs Manchester City, which they lost 2-1 away to a 90th-minute goal), qualified for this season’s Champions League and won the German Cup — the club’s first trophy in four years.
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More impressive even than the results was the way Terzic handled himself. A strong, eloquent communicator, Slaven Bilic’s former assistant at Besiktas and West Ham United oozed confidence on passion on the touchline. Dortmund feared that his popularity in the dressing room and with the fans — he’s a supporter of the club himself — would create problems if he were to stay on as an assistant under new coach Marco Rose. But they were also wary of losing him to another club, so made him their technical director.
Terzic turned down coaching offers from the Premier League and abroad over the summer. In Dortmund, they believe he’ll eventually take on a non-rival club in the Bundesliga before coming back to them as head coach one day.
Moral qualms about the ownership, aside, a detour via Newcastle might seem appealing, too, however. Terzic speaks perfect English, having done his UEFA Pro Licence course in England for 18 months.
Raphael Honigstein
Domenico Tedesco
Domenico Tedesco never played football at the highest level. But unlike peers such as Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel, who had to retire early because of injuries, he never had the talent either. Before getting a job as Stuttgart Under-17s coach in 2013, the now 36-year-old had worked on passenger comfort and sound design at a subcontractor for German auto giants Mercedes.
In his first big-time role, this son of Italian immigrants coached a mediocre Schalke side to finish as runners-up in the 2017-18 Bundesliga. But a difficult second year saw the club getting rid of him, prematurely. They were relegated just over two years later.
Tedesco, meanwhile, resurrected his career with a productive spell at Spartak Moscow, with whom he finished as runners-up in the Russian Premier League last season.
Despite a style that’s seen as rather defensive, Tedesco is bound to walk into another big job in Germany before too long.
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He’s definitely one of the up-and-coming managerial talents to watch, even if this Newcastle vacancy might come a little early for him.
Raphael Honigstein
Matthias Jaissle
Red Bull Salzburg are on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League knockout phase for the very first time, with a four-point lead over their nearest rivals at the halfway point of the group stage. While strikers Karim Adeyemi and Noah Okafor have caught the eye, football insiders are taking note of Matthias Jaissle, their 33-year old coach.
The former Hoffenheim defender and graduate of the Ralf Rangnick coaching university will be first in line to succeed Jesse Marsch at Salzburg’s big brother club RB Leipzig over the border in his native Germany if and when they part ways with the American.
But Leipzig won’t be the only side clamouring for his services. Tactically astute and a great motivator, Jaissle ticks all the boxes. His lack of experience and relative anonymity make it unlikely that Newcastle will come knocking on his door in a hurry, but he’d be a truly innovative and gutsy signing, with footballing sensibilities that suit Tyneside sensibilities.
“We don’t define ourselves by results in the Champions League, only by the way we play,” he said before this week’s 3-1 group-stage win over Wolfsburg.
Turns out the youngest team in the competition — and the youngest coach — can play well and win at the same time, too.
Raphael Honigstein
Roy Hodgson… then Graham Potter
Newcastle, as their fans are all too aware, currently find themselves in a relegation fight. No wins from their first eight matches is a startlingly poor record that should have placed Steve Bruce’s job as head coach in serious doubt regardless of any change of ownership.
Immediately, it’s not unreasonable to think they need a short-term firefighter to keep them up.
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The best man for that job might be Roy Hodgson, who took charge of Crystal Palace in a comparably bad situation in the autumn of 2017 and guided them to Premier League survival — and then to another three years without relegation.
Clearly, Newcastle wouldn’t want him sticking around that long, and having turned 74 this summer Hodgson isn’t a long-term option anyway, but as a manager capable of drilling a defence and getting his side playing on the counter-attack, it wouldn’t be a terrible appointment at this time.
Hodgson would then give way to a manager capable of implementing a more adventurous style of football, and for that job, the best man might be Graham Potter, who has successfully done that very thing over the past couple of years at Brighton. Results have been slightly underwhelming, but the underlying statistics suggest Potter has performed well. He would need ball-playing defenders more capable than those currently at the club, which is why his appointment at this early point in Newcastle’s reinvention wouldn’t make sense.
And after Potter? Who knows? By that stage, it might be time to look at Europe’s most revered coaches. Some might think that time is now, and clubs instinctively want a long-term manager who can stick around for the foreseeable future, but appointments like that are difficult and suitable candidates are few and far between.
In reality, Newcastle are likely to have various stages of development over the coming years, if their new owners invest the sums that many expect. Their best approach, therefore, might be chopping and changing between managers as their situation evolves, probably with a skilled sporting director being the long-term, consistent presence.
Michael Cox
Ralf Rangnick
While it’s important for the new owners to find a manager who is going to guide Newcastle away from relegation over the next six months or so, it’s arguably just as important that they find someone who can build the club into a sustainable superpower in the long run.
And in the modern game, that responsibility sits not with the head coach but with a sporting director.
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Many of the candidates named in this piece are great options for the vacancy, but the best hire with the long-term goals of the club in mind is the one who sits up in the stands rather than down in the dugout.
Given his track record, there’s none better suited for that challenge than Ralf Rangnick.
The 63-year-old German, currently working in a director of football role at Lokomotiv Moscow, has seen it all both as a manager and then sporting director at RB Leipzig. He spent eight seasons in the latter position from 2012 to 2020, steering the club from the fourth tier to the Bundesliga in a record time of just four years.
He’s shown an ability to implement a club-wide philosophy and set up a scouting department that consistently finds value within the market.
For Newcastle, both of those things will immediately help the team now and into the future, and set them on the right path for years to come.
Tom Worville
Marcelo Gallardo
A left-field option for Newcastle is Marcelo Gallardo. Following a successful playing career that saw him play in France and his native Argentina as an attacking midfielder, the 45-year-old has been manager of Buenos Aires giants River Plate for seven seasons. In that time, he’s won 12 domestic and continental trophies, making him the most successful manager in the club’s recent history. Currently, his side are seven points clear at the top of the Argentinian Primera Division.
Originally profiled on The Athletic last year as a potential Guardiola replacement at Manchester City, Gallardo would bring an eye-catching brand of attacking football to St James’ Park. Predicated on possession and counter-pressing to win the ball back quickly, his style has elements that are in line with how some of Europe’s most dominating sides play.
Whether Newcastle have the quality within the squad to replicate that immediately is a big question mark. He is something of a tactical pragmatist though, often switching formation with River, based on the players he has at his disposal.
Naturally, there’s an element of risk in appointing a manager who’s been successful in a lesser-quality league and has never had to battle relegation. But there is also something quite exciting about hiring a manager from South America — an unknown quantity compared to the largely European-based options.
Tom Worville
Gian Piero Gasperini
Gian Piero Gasperini has spent his whole managerial career in Italy, including two stints each at Crotone, Genoa and Palermo — the latter in the same 2012-13 season, no less. His most successful tenure to date has been his current one though, as head coach of Atalanta, a club whose fortunes he’s turned around in the past five years.
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Before Gasperini, Atalanta were largely a mid-table Serie A team, but through a mix of tactical innovation and prudent recruitment, they have become one of Europe’s most watchable ones. The mix of flying wing-backs, a man-marking approach out of possession across the pitch and an attacking trident who score and create for fun are three facets of Gasperini’s side that any Newcastle fan would undoubtedly love to watch week-in, week-out.
It’s not just been entertaining either. Atalanta made the Champions League in 2019-20, for the first time in their history, and have finished third in Serie A for the past three seasons, constantly punching above their weight compared to the level of their spending. Figures from Gazzetta dello Sport for the 2020-21 season estimated that their wage bill was around €42.6 million, just the 11th highest in the 20-team league and close to a fifth of what serial champions Juventus were shelling out.
That’s indicative of a coach who can squeeze the best out of his players, which is what Newcastle will need both now and in the long run.
Tom Worville
(Photos: Getty Images/Design: Tom Slator)