At the beginning of July, Newcastle announced the appointment of Paul Mitchell as sporting director, replacing Dan Ashworth who had left for Manchester United. It was a real coup, recruiting a man who had an incredibly strong reputation after working at teams such as Tottenham, RB Leipzig and Monaco.

Less than a week later, Staveley left the club. In practical terms, little changed: all the key positions in football, finance and commercial that she had initially taken over from the previous owner Mike Ashley after taking over were filled with industry-leading experts.

But in terms of perception, it was a massive success. Staveley remains incredibly popular with the fans, having helped displace the eternally unpopular Ashley, and she has been a huge emotional support to the players, especially Howe.

This means CEO Darren Eales will have to take a more active role at the helm of the club. In an internal interview with the club’s media, Eales said Mitchell’s role will be “90% recruitment”, differentiating him from Ashworth’s role, who will be “the centre of things”, as he put it, looking after the academy, scouting and the women’s team.

Ashworth has also reportedly been unable to build a close relationship with Howe, who is considered to be very reserved and trusts the “inner circle” of his coaching staff. With Mitchell’s arrival, as well as James Bunce – the new performance director he worked with at Monaco – and a streamlined mandate that, on the surface, limits Howe’s role, the structure around the head coach has changed.

Speaking during a pre-season training camp in Germany, Howe did nothing to ease the tension when he said he had to be happy with the dynamic for himself and Newcastle. It was a very deliberate message that he had to be allowed to do his job.

After a pre-season win at Hull on July 27, Howe spoke of “positive conversations,” “several daily recruitment meetings” and the need for “collaboration.”