Newcastle have made a massive mistake - Ted Knutson
by Olly Hawkins · 15 October 2024, 14:31
Mark Douglas has released a brilliant piece today on Newcastle United's move towards a data-driven approach to transfers and recruitment, which includes some intriguing quotes from former Statsbomb CEO Ted Knutson.
Knutson was involved at Newcastle in the early stages of our 'data revolution' and played a huge role at Statsbomb; the football analytics firm used by some of the world's biggest clubs.
His thoughts are clearly valued, yet his comments on Yankuba Minteh in his in-depth chat with Douglas are pretty damning. Despite the looming fear of a PSR penalty, he feels our decision to sell the Gambian was the "biggest fumble" we could make and explains why below, believing a small points deduction would've been better than losing the ideal answer to our right-winger woes who "looks like he might be a top 10 right winger in the world in the next three years."
“If they’re looking for a right winger they had the right person! They literally had him,” he told Douglas at the i. "It’s the biggest fumble they could make. It literally might have been better to be docked points than lose him.
“They flipped their money and got a 4x profit on it which is really good in most circumstances but Minteh’s profile is one that looks like he might be a top 10 right winger in the world in the next three years. Brighton clearly think that because they have him in the first XI.
“I was shocked by how much I love this kid because of his control inside of the box. You were watching [Jamal] Musiala at the Euros at the time who had that element of being impossible to touch in the box because you don’t know which way he will go, he can finish quite well and the fact he is left footed makes him super valuable by himself.
“Now what I expected Newcastle to do was keep him and as long as Eddie didn’t ship him out – which would have been a mistake, but we’ve seen that before with Saliba at Arsenal who was out on loan too long – I expected him to come in the last 25 minutes and really change the game, especially against the tougher teams you could stretch them.”
The club backed themselves into a corner at the end of June and would've been criticised whatever 'solution' was found, but it did feel like a moment that could come back to haunt us, especially when you consider our need for a new right-winger and Brighton's eye for top talent.
With a goal and an assist already this season, Minteh will finally play his first game at St James' Park when Brighton come to town this Saturday. Let's hope Lewis Hall wins that battle and we're not punished even further by a player who could have been the long-term answer to our right winger search.
