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I know what I’m going to talk about seems a bit mad when you take into account the current and recent troubles that our club has been through but bear with me and I’ll try to explain what I’m seeing and why I have this take on it. With all the talk about SCR and other forms of financial control being at the forefront of how some clubs are the haves and have nots, it’s easy to look at ourselves and maybe Aston Villa and bemoan that it’s not fair. All the best players from both clubs have left for our rivals and we are left picking at the scraps to trying to build squads that’ll compete well this season. Villa has a real challenge which a lot of pundits seemed to be dismissing before their terrible result at the weekend, but their squad has been decimated this summer. Tielemans, Konsa, Digne, and Morgan Rogers are a massive loss for one team to absorb, not to mention the impending departure of Watkins. They also have Europe to contend with. I fear for them this year and can honestly see them having a well below par effort with a mid-table finish. They rely massively on Unai Emery. He is a top, top coach who keeps getting it right and they flirt massively with SCR every year. So far, they've made good decisions on transfers, but their income isn’t growing like ours is. They rely heavily on UEFA payments, and a very modest net spend on transfers which makes their headline figure of £378m income look impressive, especially as it jumped by £100m year on year. But like I said, £70m is from UEFA. One big mistake in transfers or one less than satisfactory season and they are in trouble. Newcastle United found themselves in the very same situation at the start of last season. After a successful season with a trophy and UCL qualification, things were looking very bright but we all know what happened. The summer trading on replacing Isak was poor and that put the club in a big, big spot. This is where my take is being born from. I’ve investigated all the machinations that have followed our debacle of a season, and although the headlines are very bleak, the reality, I believe, is somewhat different. What we had could not be continued, we all know that the club had become top heavy. Players whose salaries had grown with success were choking off any attempts at investment. We also had a coach who just wasn’t ruthless enough. We had real dead wood in our squad which was eating up salary bandwidth, and we couldn’t properly improve the squad, never mind the first team. The club also had to deal with big names whose dedication to NUFC had gone. Gordon was obvious - I love the lad for some of the displays he gave me, but let's be honest, he was all for himself, wasn't he? Tonali never wanted to be here. He saw himself as an Italian thoroughbred who deserved to be at a top marquee club. He came to bail himself and AC Milan out because he knew what was coming, nobody can ever convince me otherwise. The one that hurts us all is Bruno. We were all fooled into believing that he was genuine about his “I’m a Geordie like you” routine but that’s gone south and he’s now a “cockney like them”. That’s the negativity out of the way. What has really impressed me is how the club has handled it. My admiration for Eddie Howe has really grown through this. He knew he wasn’t up for it and took the honourable route. He didn’t wait to be sacked and pick up a big chunk. He put the club first. I hope he can go away, work on what he did wrong, and come back as an even better manager than he was for us. A big round of applause must go to Ross Wilson. I know he’s getting some stick for how long it takes to do some deals, but the amount of dough he got for our players who didn’t even want to play for us anymore is pretty impressive. He looks like he has an eye for talent as well. I’m impressed with the signings we’ve made this summer and the continued recruitment of youth below that is still relentless. Our CEO is also getting some stick, but let's look at it with a clear head. I think he is a loyal bloke when it’s warranted. Ithink he did like Eddie Howe and wanted him to succeed but I also think that Eddie has got him off the hook. Eddie Howe really did need to go. He was stale and looked tired and out of ideas. I think his bout of illness took more out of him than he would care to admit and his loyalty to Jason Tindall holds him back. They were too similar as coaches and really didn’t know how to change things up. Once the obvious was presented to Hopkinson and Wilson, this is where they really kicked into gear. The identification of Jaissle, I think, will end up being a masterstroke and took some bottle. The pressure would’ve been immense to bring in a “name” but when you look at the plan you can see why they went for him. He’s the coaching equivalent of all the young players we are investing in - one of the best coming through but with a very high ceiling. The best is yet to come but he has just enough confidence and experience to pull it off, our next stage, Newcastle 2.0 as they call it. The football will be a work in progress, not a straight line by any means. There will be highs and lows, but the trajectory will be upwards for sure. Coupled with the growth we are now going to see commercially and on the business side it is going to be huge and this where I think we will blow our rivals out of the water. The announcement of the new training facility is massive; the commercial and sporting benefits are endless. We will have the most up to date and impressive training facility in world football, bar none. The list of possible areas to engage with are endless: Training ground naming rights Sports science and technology partnerships Corporate and hospitality events Premium behind the scenes experiences International football camps Women's football Content and media production Food, nutrition and lifestyle partnerships A hotel?? What could all this be worth then? Naming rights, £8-10m; performance tech partnerships, £10-15m; event/Corporate hospitality, £4-5m; tours or experiences, £2-3m; Academy camps, £3-5m; hotel & conference operations, £5-15m; other commercial partnerships, £2-5m. Total potential commercial incomes: £34 - 58m These are just my estimates not the club's, but I’m certain this is exactly what the club sees as the potential once the site is in place. This all being driven by Hopkinson. That’s his job. He’s quickly shuffled the deck with our board. Some people have left to be replaced by leaders in their fields. The drive has accelerated under him, and I will genuinely expect some concrete movement on the future of SJP or a new stadium soon. That will turbo charge the club’s revenues to something we just can’t achieve presently. Commercial revenue was £120m in the most recent accounts but this will blow it up to Big 6 levels. Add the recently announced commercial shifts away from Saudi based business and you can see the influence of Hopkinson and his team. SELA have been replaced by Knox, Coca-Cola, Sum up, and Adidas. This is clever and removes the main objection that the Saudis would cheat and just move their own money into the club via related routes. We are now being judged as a mainstream and genuine commercial vehicle. The link up with Coca Cola is significant - I’ve worked on deals with big brands myself from the supply side and they aren’t easy to achieve, so for them to join the club as a partner is not to be sniffed at. Until now the talk has been of Newcastle being an outlier in the world, that place somewhere on the edge of the world that nobody really wants to be associated with. But that's really starting to be broken down. The city that we love is now being recognised as possibly the place to be. Aesthetically it’s beautiful, perfectly located. Our new state of the art training facility will be adjacent to the airport, right next to the most desirable area for players to live. Our stadium is bang in the centre of town and is now earning an iconic reputation for atmosphere, and we have the most exciting of new young European coaches who is assembling an exciting young squad. All the best young players will fancy joining us because they will get a chance to play. Not just cook in the academy as they have done recently. Over the next 2-3 seasons I can see us build a momentum both on and off the pitch that will propel us into the top echelon where any sets of rules will be irrelevant, we will be comparable to the Big 6 and able to compete properly. Now won’t that irritate everyone, just how we like it! Les Cash