It’s the start of a new era for Newcastle United at boardroom level.

Last week, Ross Wilson was appointed as the club’s new sporting director.

They’ll be hoping he sticks around in the role, having succeeded Paul Mitchell, who held the position for only a year, while Dan Ashworth only held the post for two years, before being placed on extended gardening leave prior to his ill-fated five-month stint at Manchester United.

Wilson himself has previously been a sporting director at Huddersfield, Southampton, Rangers and, most recently, Nottingham Forest, spending two seasons in the East Midlands before now heading to Tyneside.

Under Saudi ownership, Newcastle are certainly one of the most ambitious clubs around, so Wilson is likely to oversee plenty of high-profile deals, but which current squad members will need to be phased out in the coming year or so?

Newcastle's squad transition under PIF

Since the Saudi takeover in 2021, a lot of the Newcastle squad have remained virtual ever-presents.

Eddie Howe has been in charge of 183 matches to date, with 12 players featuring in at least 100 of them, nine of which are currently at the club.

Sean Longstaff, Miguel Almirón and Alexander Isak are the only trio of exceptions, and the latter’s record-breaking departure could signal the start of a new era.

Chalkboard

Football FanCast’s Chalkboard series presents a tactical discussion from around the global game.

Using the £125m yielded from the no longer very popular Swede’s sale, the Magpies spent around £256m last summer, recruiting five new senior players on a permanent basis.

Yoane Wissa and Jacob Ramsey are yet to make much of an impact due to injury, but Anthony Elanga and Malick Thiaw have established themselves as part of the first-choice lineup, while Nick Woltemade has made quite the early impression, scoring four goals already.

So, while players such as Bruno Guimarães, Fabian Schär, Dan Burn, Jacob Murphy, Joelinton, Anthony Gordon and Nick Pope have been stalwarts of the Newcastle team for around four years, players are going to have to be eased out, and for one in particular, he could be on borrowed time.

Newcastle's ageing star set to be phased out

Kieran Trippier will always go down in history as Newcastle’s first signing of the Saudi era, arriving in January 2022 for around £12m.

With previous club Atlético Madrid, he’d won the La Liga title the season before and was first-choice for England at the time, thereby representing a major coup for a side in the Premier League relegation zone at the time.

Well, to date, he has made 132 appearances for the Magpies, starting all eight Champions League fixtures they’ve had, as well as both EFL Cup Finals, donning the armband during the defeat to Manchester United at Wembley.

So far this season, Trippier has also started five of seven Premier League fixtures, but was left on the bench against Bournemouth, before coming on towards the end against Arsenal after Tino Livramento was stretchered off with a knee ligament issue.

Considering he’s set to be sidelined for around eight weeks, Trippier will be required to deputise for now, but there’s already started to be a changing of the guard in terms of Newcastle full-backs, with Livramento earning three England caps, while Lewis Hall’s performances on the opposite side are catching the eye too.

Writer Scott Wilson labelled Trippier Newcastle’s “talisman” shortly after his arrival but, now 35 years old, his importance is starting to be diminished.

So, let’s compare the England international’s statistics from last season to the year before.

Appearances

28

25

Minutes

2,240

1,308

All statistics below are on a per-90 basis:

Chances created

2.6

1.6

Big chances created

0.52

0.14

Crosses

2.5

1

Take-on success %

73%

50%

Interceptions

1

0.9

Ball Recoveries

6.6

4.7

Tackles

2

1.5

Ground duel success %

53%

56%

Touches

98

98

Average SofaScore rating

7.31

6.94

As the table outlines, by pretty much every metric included, Trippier’s numbers worsened last season compared to the year before.

His chance creation numbers drastically decreased, as did his out-of-possession statistics, including ball recoveries and tackles.

This is a clear sign of a player in decline, which is to be expected given the player’s age, but with Trippier in the final year of his contract, one of Wilson’s biggest challenges will be finding a replacement who has not only his quality but also his leadership skills.