Visitors to Newcastle’s training ground are greeted by a vision of organised chaos. While bulldozers, diggers and cement mixers jostle for space with four-wheel drives, VIP parking bays are temporarily covered by giant piles of sand and hard-hatted contractors clock on for work alongside multimillionaire Premier League footballers.
It is all part of the significant upgrading of a facility undergoing the sort of expensive facelift designed to attract some of Europe’s leading players this summer. Eddie Howe’s only problem is that in order to hire the very best – West Ham’s Declan Rice rather than Manchester United’s Scott McTominay, say – his side need to finish in the Premier League’s top four next month.
