Yankuba Minteh – Newcastle's loss is Brighton's gain
The talented winger has joined Brighton, casting doubt over Newcastle pathways.
Newcastle United’s 2021 takeover ushered in - alongside no shortage of ethical criticisms - a new manager, practically a full new starting eleven, and a mountain of wealth that supporters of a stingy Steve Bruce side could scarcely imagine. But, as the old adage goes, mo’ money, way mo’ problems.
This week, the club sold 19-year-old Yankuba Minteh to Brighton & Hove Albion for a reported £30 million. Those new problems are beginning to show their fangs — and their profits.
If Newcastle are to replicate the post-takeover success of clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea, they must tackle this host of new challenges with their heads screwed on. Wealthy clubs with Champions League ambitions simply have different issues to perennial lower-midtable stragglers — stragglers as the Geordies have largely been for the last decade or so. Possibly the most crucial of these questions will concern player development.
Developing players is hard. Not every future star is ready for first-team minutes, and finding a loan destination that fits a player’s level of play and tactical profile is rarely easy — take, for instance, Gio Reyna’s January loan to Nottingham Forest this season. His four months at the club yielded just two starts.
The importance of getting this right has been heightened in the age of global scouting, when wealthy clubs are incentivised to sign green young players as low-risk, high-reward investments, leaving an increasing number in need of playing time. Multi-club ownership has found its own kind of solution: see City Football Group and the Red Bull teams, who deliberately foster tactical and stylistic consistency throughout their ‘families’ to ensure internal transfers are smooth. For other clubs with less developed networks, perfecting player development pathways can mean the difference between producing a superstar and burning out a failed wonderkid.
Newcastle’s recent pathways have been… complicated. Many older players on ancient Mike Ashley-era contracts have been shipped out on loan alongside a crop of youngsters keen for minutes, to mixed results. Garang Kuol, an Australian talent snapped up from Central Coast Mariners, has played less than ten nineties across spells at Hearts and FC Volendam, while Matty Longstaff, Kell Watts, and Harrison Ashby have played limited minutes across the EFL.
But Newcastle’s time amongst football’s financial elite is still young. Seven of their eleven most-used league players in 2023-24 were acquired since 2021, and many veterans from the pre-takeover days are still under contract, even if they’re no longer in the first-team picture. There’s still work to do before the transformation into state-backed superpower is complete.
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As Newcastle work to turn their newfound riches into on-pitch success, adequate recruitment and player development pipelines will become more and more crucial. Now, as the summer transfer window begins to find its feet and the PSR-enforced repercussions of rapidly building a superstar squad begin to bite, those pipelines are being put to the test.
Minteh should have been the first great success story of this new era. Perhaps, depending on your outlook, he still is: a teenager purchased from Denmark for a mere reported €8m and flipped after a year on loan for £30m represents an example of player development done right - at least for a club with ambitions of the elite, who must trade talent for profit without a flinch.
But, as we look back at a year in which Minteh tore open the Eredivisie, it’s difficult to escape a sense of missed opportunity. That Brighton have swooped, a club renowned for their sense of value and deep understanding of when a player is ready for the Premier League, should set alarm bells ringing. Newcastle’s hastily assembled super-team is beginning to reap its toll.
Regardless, Minteh’s year on loan at Feyenoord was a remarkable success. Let’s take a look at just what Brighton have bought — and Newcastle United have lost.
Read on for…
A rapid ascent to the Premier League
His best bits at Feyenoord under Arne Slot
One of the best age-group dribblers in Europe
Refining erratic final product to unlock potential
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