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Newcastle United are nothing if not resourceful.

Eddie Howe has been under pressure this season, and his side have not been good enough, but two wins on the bounce in the Premier League have lifted the Magpies out of the bottom half, now only five points behind fourth-place Liverpool.

Technical director Ross Wilson is now settled into his seat at St. James’ Park, and it’s unlikely that Newcastle will splurge throughout the month, but there’s undoubtedly a desire to make a shrewd purchase or two if the right chance arrives.

A number of positions have been marked, but depth at full-backs has hamstrung Howe at times this term, so expect some movement there.

Newcastle set sights on new full-back

Lewis Miley has been something of a revelation this season, with the Geordie prospect standing in at right-back on multiple occasions, doing a job for injury-hit Newcastle and receiving Alan Shearer’s endorsement after a standout display against Crystal Palace on Sunday.

Tino Livramento made it off the bench against Palace but has been unconvincing on the fitness front all year. With Kieran Trippier, 35, out of contract at the end of the campaign, it makes sense to move for a new star.

And according to Caught Offside, Newcastle and Aston Villa are prepared to battle for Celta Vigo star Oscar Mingueza’s signature this month, with the versatile defender out of contract at the end of the season.

It would take a small fee of around €10m (about £8m) to convince the La Liga side to sell, but it’s worth stressing they want to keep the 26-year-old, who has been engaged in discussions pertaining to a renewal at the Estadio de Balaidos this term.

Why Newcastle should sign Oscar Mingueza

Mingueza cut his teeth with Barcelona and played a squad role in the first team before signing for Celta Vigo in 2022, where he has since made 121 appearances, scoring seven goals and supplying 12 assists.

The Spain international’s natural aptitude as a defender could see him supersede Miley as Livramento’s understudy, and with Howe’s midfield already jam-packed and targeting additions this year, this could be bad news for the young Toon.

That’s not to say he will be cast aside, but his playing time may be limited at a time when chances have started to pick up. But, as we have seen this season, Newcastle have needed more across a range of positions, and Mingueza could help advance this up-and-down system.

Hailed by analyst Ben Mattinson as an “underrated” player whose versatility means he can cover “the whole backline” effectively, Mingueza would certainly fit the mould that Howe likes, with both Miley and Livramento showcasing impressive tactical dynamism on Tyneside.

Oscar Mingueza – Career Stats by Position

Position

Apps

Goals + Assists

Centre-back

86

2 + 7

Right-back

74

3 + 6

Right midfield

33

2 + 5

Left-back

19

1 + 1

Left midfield

8

1 + 2

Centre-midfield

1

0 + 0

Data via Transfermarkt

There is something Trippier-esque about this wide defender that underlines his ability to promote transitional play, thus aligning with Howe’s identity as a tactician.

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As per FBref, the La Masia graduate ranks among the top 4% of positional peers across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for passes attempted, the top 1% for progressive passes and the top 9% for shot-creating actions per 90, emphasising the dimensions he would add to Howe’s on-the-ball set-up.

Spanish reporter Jacobo Buceta remarked in November that Mingueza is “back in [sic] his best version”, with the wideman’s “brutal” creativity really coming to the fore. Fellow journalist Vicent Burguete described him as a “hell of a player” for his “elegant & complete” skillset. It’s clear to see why he’s coveted, even as Miley makes headway.

If Newcastle wish to leap up a level and begin performing as a side capable of throwing down with anyone across Europe, this is the move Howe and Wilson must make, shrewdly layering the team before grander plans come summer.

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People close to a ‘genuine talent’ have reportedly admitted that Tottenham want to sign him, with the player also in huge demand across Europe.

Tottenham set for cash windfall amid Brennan Johnson sale

The big news coming out of Spurs in the last 48 hours is winger Brennan Johnson’s imminent departure, which comes just over two years after his £47.5 million switch from Nottingham Forest.

Johnson, who finished 24/25 as the Lilywhites’ top goalscorer in all competitions with 18, also scored the Europa League-final winning goal against Man United in May to end their 17-year wait for a major trophy.

Fast-forward to now, and the Wales international is closing in on an exit with Crystal Palace already agreeing a £35 million fee for Johnson prior to January.

However, the south Londoners still aren’t alone in the race, with Everton, Sunderland and Bournemouth all making calls to Spurs and considering moves of their own.

As the race for Johnson heats up, Thomas Frank and co are making recruitment plans of their own as we fast approach 2026.

According to journalist Graeme Bailey and TEAMtalk, one man on their radar is AZ Alkmaar sensation Kees Smit.

Tottenham want to sign Kees Smit amid Frenkie de Jong comparison

The 19-year-old has taken Dutch football by storm and is already drawing lofty comparisons, with an unnamed Premier League scout telling TT that he’s the Netherlands’ answer to Adam Wharton and possibly a new Frenkie de Jong.

Bailey also says that people close to Smit’s camp have confirmed that every big club in England is after the teenager, including Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Newcastle.

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With Tottenham targeting Smit for 2026, the mystery scout has also called him a ‘genuine talent’ and one of Dutch football’s most exciting prospects who ‘everyone will be talking about’.

The Eredivisie starlet, according to TEAMtalk, could cost as much as £65 million — ironically a similar fee to de Jong’s Barcelona transfer in 2019.

If not that high, it is believed a minimum £52 million would be required to convince AZ to part with their rising star next year.

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Mahela Jayawardene: “It’s going to be good fun” © AFP

The English season may still be another six months away but Mahela Jayawardene is already looking forward to making his county debut. Jayawardene, the Sri Lanka captain, signed for Derbyshire yesterday as the county ring the changes with a new-look squad which includes Wavell Hinds.”It’s good,” he told Cricinfo in Adelaide, as he warmed up for Sri Lanka’s tour match here this weekend. “I haven’t played before. It’s a great opportunity.”I don’t think I will be there for long because of my international commitment. But they’re trying to start all over again, Derby, and they’ve got a few good players coming in. It’s going to be good fun and hopefully I can learn something at a different level of cricket.”And he promised to lend new captain Rikki Clarke, who will be joined by former Surrey team-mate Nayan Doshi, the benefit of his experience. “I’ve played against him a few times and I think he’s a very good cricketer.”Give him the responsibility, he’s a young guy and I think he’s looking forward to it. It’s a good challenge for him as well, so if I can help him in any way it would be great and try to start anew at Derby. A good challenge for me, as well.”Jayawardene will arrive towards the end of April and stay until the middle of July after which he can be replaced by another overseas player.

The bitter infighting inside Zimbabwe took yet another twist this week as the ten provincial chairmen disassociated themselves with claims by Themba Mliswa, the political extremist who held a media conference during which he said he was speaking on their behalf.Mliswa called on Peter Chingoka, the board chairman, to account for recent events and repeated accusations of financial impropriety against board members as well as making threats that he had friends in high places who were behind him.But the Zimbabwe Cricket website has said that last weekend the chairmen met and voted unanimously to disassociate themselves from Mliswa’s remarks. A statement issued by them said: “While we do not wish to go into detail with regards to Mliswa’s statements, and whilst we prefer to reserve our comments on his statements against certain individual members of the ZC interim board, our conscience is clear as we make this brief statement.”Mliswa was slung off the board in July, and the chairmen reiterated that he “does not represent any of the ten provinces”.While the removal of Mliswa from the scene – if that is what the upshot of this is – can be no bad thing, the chairmen’s stance is hardly surprising given that by and large they are in effect appointees of the ZC hierarchy.This is not the end of the unrest as Crispen Tsvarai, the senior executive who left the board a fortnight ago, has raised a number of issues which will need to be addressed.

Bennett King believes Glenn McGrath and Co. will be quite a handful for even the likes of Brian Lara and Chris Gayle © Getty Images

Bennett King, the West Indies coach, reposes more faith in his unproven bowling attack than in the team’s batting. King believes it will be the Australian bowlers who will turn on the pressure on the West Indies in the three-Test series that begins in Brisbane on November 3.”We have the bowling that can unsettle the Australian batsmen,” King was reported as saying in the . “History shows they have two of the best bowlers in the world, so batting is in for a tough time, I guess.”King regards Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as the prime threats to a star-studded batting lineup that includes Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle, all of whom have played over 50 Tests. Lara averages 53.75 with the bat, Chanderpaul 47.41, Sarwan 40.87 and Gayle 39.38, but King feels that they have their task cut out for them.The West Indies squad to Australia includes six fast bowlers, none of whom has played more than 17 Tests. Jermaine Lawson, whose action has been scrutinised in the past, is the only fast bowler who averages less than 30 with the ball. King believes all six have the necesssary pace and fire to succeed, and cited their good showing in Sri Lanka in July. “We didn’t get enough runs in Sri Lanka on very good batting decks but we certainly got very good players out,” King said. “We know we can get good players out. We have to make sure we get runs as well.”King’s claims come a day after his bowlers, led by Daren Powell (4 for 58), bowled out Queensland for 323 in a warm-up game ahead of the Test series. Lawson, Fidel Edwards and Corey Collymore were all rested but are expected to come into contention for the first Test.

South African cricket is going through a period of transition, and Gerald Majola, the chief executive of the United Cricket Board, is at the helm of the transformation process. He spoke to the media during the first Test at Kanpur.

Gerald Majola: facing the press in Kanpur© Getty Images

On the reasoning behind such an inexperienced squad
As far as we are concerned, this is the best team for South Africa, as selected by our standards. We outlined those standards at the beginning of the season, and every player here has been selected on form. If you look at their statistics, they stand out.On the policy of including five or six black players in the squad, and whether that puts pressure on his selectors
I was asked this question in Parliament. A day earlier, at the selectors’ meeting, they had all agreed to pick the team based on form and not by any other qualification. But the selectors know about our transformation policy and they understand it.On the importance of the policy, given the controversies with the rugby team last year
Transformation in South Africa is very important, not only for cricket but for the entire country. We have to transform and know where we are coming from. South Africa suffered under apartheid for decades and transformation is something that doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a process. In 1998, the United Cricket Board started its own transformation chapter without any external pressure, because we understand that we have to transform the sport.Cricket is part of South Africa and we have set ourselves targets that we must achieve, which is why you now see black players being picked on merit. We have recently reduced our provincial teams from 11 to six, and the number of black players playing there is almost 50 percent. They are all coming through on merit and many of those performing well are also black. They are being selected on form and not because they are black. Thami Tsolekile, Alfonso Thomas and Charl Langeveldt, who is not here, are some of those players doing well.Is the emphasis on long-term planning or short-term goals?
It’s a long-term process and not a matter of numbers.Will you be distracted from this path if you lose a couple of series?
No, definitely not.How about the white players who feel they are being ignored?
No one is being ignored because everyone is selected on merit. So, any white player who performs will be selected.On including former players like Barry Richards in the development programme
You can’t force someone to do something they don’t want do. Barry Richards has chosen to be a commentator and that’s his field. You have others like [Ray] Jennings who are still involved in the system and therefore being used by it.Any special plans for the development programme?
Everyone has to have access to the sport. Previously some of us did not have access to the same facilities that our white colleagues did.On Mark Boucher being dropped
He was out of form.

Duncan Fletcher will continue to combine his role of head coach with that of tour manager in all of England’s overseas series.Following a report from the ECB on the 2002/03 Ashes series, the proposal for a separate tour manager was rejected.Dennis Amiss, the International Teams Management Group (ITMG) chairman, produced the report which also recommended measures to be taken to improve day-to-day communications on tour. As a result, Fletcher will report directly to John Carr, the ECB’s director of cricket operations, rather than to the chief executive.Carr is to receive a daily bulletin from Phil Neale, the team operations manager, and new protocols are to be put in place to ensure the management, ECB personnel and the Professional Cricketers Association are appropriately updated on administration and injury news.

Gaining respect from other states is at the top of the South Australian cricket team’s “to do” list as it attempts to erase the memory of a lacklustre last season.State cricket manager Greg Chappell laid down the law to his squad after it took the Pura Cup four day tournament’s wooden spoon and narrowly missed the final of the one-day competition in 2000-01.”At the moment South Australian cricket has very little respect,” Chappell told AAP.”We’ve had little blips on the radar where we’ve produced a group of players who have been good enough and desperate enough to win the competition.”But by and large, if you took a straw poll within the competition, we don’t have much respect and we never have.”The former Australian captain said his players needed to display the desire to be successful as well as good form.”If they meet that, they’ll be chosen, if they don’t, then they better start thinking about another career,” he said.”I don’t have any set ideas on who our first side is going to be.”Form is obviously going to count but commitment is also going to count.”As part of its mental preparation for the coming season, the Redbacks squad will take part in a training camp in Victoria on Wednesday and Thursday.The camp, conducted in the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park near Mildura, will focus on goal setting and team building.It will be the second year in a row the squad has taken part in the camp.The Redbacks have also called in a sports psychologist, who will be available to work with players throughout their season, which starts with a day-night limited overs match against Western Australia in Perth on October 12.Chappell said he had also spoken to players about publicity surrounding his contract negotiations earlier this year.”Within our group, it’s never been a huge issue,” Chappell said.After negotiations were resolved in May, SA Cricket Association chief executive Michael Deare said this summer would more than likely be Chappell’s last in charge of the Redbacks.Deare said due to other business interests, Chappell wanted to live in the eastern states this summer and commute to Adelaide to coach the Redbacks but the SACA found the proposal “totally unacceptable”.Chappell’s current contract expires at the end of March next year.

Ravi Shastri, India’s team director, has thrown his weight behind his batsmen and has asked the bowlers to learn their lessons. India have scored 309, 308 and 295 in the first three ODIs of the series against Australia, but have failed to defend any of those totals. In particular, Shastri has defended the batsmen against charges of selfishness.India have so far scored 67, 67 and 60 from overs 31 to 40. These have been the overs when their set batsmen have approached their hundreds. In Perth, Rohit Sharma took 24 balls from 83 at the start of the 31st over to reach his hundred. Similarly in Brisbane, between the 30th and the 40th overs, Rohit took 21 balls to move from 86 to 100. Virat Kohli took 15 balls to score the last 16 runs of his century between the 38th and 43rd overs in Melbourne.This has reignited a belief held by some Australians that Indian batsmen slow down near a milestone, costing their team crucial runs. Matthew Hayden said so 10 years ago, and it has begun resonating in the Australian media again.MS Dhoni calmly said “no” when asked if he thought Indian batsmen were milestone-driven, but Shastri had a more colourful answer. “If they were focusing on milestones, Virat Kohli wouldn’t have been the fastest to 7000 runs; he would have taken another 100 games. If that was the case, Rohit Sharma would not be having two double hundreds, and a score of 264.”Shastri also said there wasn’t much more the batsmen could have done even though they were playing probably a third-choice Australian bowling attack. “I don’t think so,” Shastri said. “If you look at the skills of those bowlers, there is skill there. You might say inexperience. They have played a lot of cricket, a lot of domestic T20s, a lot of one-days. So the skill factor is very good.”The Indian attack is far more experienced, but a mix of conditions and poor bowling has let them down. Shastri said the bowlers needed to learn fast. “Finishing touch is better bowling, and being more consistent as a bowling unit. As MS mentioned, there were too many easy boundaries. It is not like the batsmen had to earn it, they were given. That should be eliminated. Even if you cut that by 60%, we will have tighter games. Those are the areas. Attention to basics. If we do that right, who knows…”With the series lost and expectation reduced, Shastri said he wanted the bowlers to show him they had learned their lesson. “What you want to see is the bowlers learning from what has happened in the first three games,” he said. “If that happens, that will be the biggest plus irrespective of the result. That is what I said last year when we played cricket in Australia. We might have lost the series 2-0, but deep inside I knew the way the boys played there was only going to be improvement.”Shastri did mention the tough schedule and injuries (one, to Mohammed Shami) as a mitigating factor. “It is a young side, there have been three debutants, we have been plagued by injuries,” Shastri said. “No excuses, I am not giving any excuses here, but it is an opportunity for the youngsters to learn. In Australia nothing comes easy. It’s one of the hardest places to play. You are playing against the world champions. The fact that you are competing, and they have competed right through this one-day series, is very good.”We need bench strength, this is one of the toughest tours. And I have been to Australia many many times. I tell you why. Because if you look at the last six days we have been in three time zones. It is not often you go through that. You play in Perth, get on a flight to Brisbane where the time is different, then to Melbourne where the time is different. All in a matter of six days. When you consider all that, I think the boys have done extremely well.”Shastri said he will ask the BCCI to send a 16-member squad for such tours.

The waiting game: Chris Adams relaxes with a beer after beating Worcestershire … only four-and-a-half hours to go © Getty Images

After four-and-a-half hours of waiting, Chris Adams punched the air with delight as Dominic Cork was bowled 60 miles away at The Oval. Sussex had won their third title in five years in what he described as “the best County Championship season ever”.Talking to Sky Sports, Adams said: “I’m just overwhelmed. We started the day needing five wickets, we got them and then we had to watch that. I’d say to Lancashire ‘you played well, you had a hard season, there’s no shame in your performance and you nearly did it’.”It’s been the most excruciating afternoon. We were panicking like hell in there. My team have been brilliant. They’ve been awesome on and off the field. The test of a true team is if you retain your trophy and we did it. You play 16 games of four-day cricket so the best team has to win, we proved that but only by the slimmest of margins. We got there by the skin of our teeth.”At The Oval, Mark Chilton, Lancashire’s captain, was in tears as he admitted that he had “never seen a changing room like it in my life.”I’m extremely proud of what our guys have achieved though. As captain I’m privileged to have seen the efforts they have put in. To get close to our target was a phenomenal effort but the lads are just broken. Our players have risen to an almighty challenge and to come so close is an enormous effort.”Mushtaq Ahmed, who took 13 wickets in the match and whose 90 wickets in the season were again instrumental in Sussex’s success, said: “I had an extra pray and asked Allah to give us another Championship. If you give 100% then Allah will always favour you.

He’s a fabulous character and he inspires so many of the other players. It’ll be a sad day when he goes Chris Adams on Mushtaq Ahmed Optional related link

“The people here are so kind and lovely. It’s a family club and I’d like to thank them. But you have to give 100% and the players cheer each other up and are united – when people are not doing well we back them up. You have to stay together when there are ups and downs. It’s a very special moment for Sussex but we’ve had to work hard for our win.”Adams singled out Mushtaq for praise. “He’s been bowled into the ground … not that he’ll mind. It’s not only his ability, it’s his commitment, his desire to keep bowling overs. He just turns up and keeps churning out the overs and waning to take wickets. He’s a fabulous character and he inspires so many of the other players. It’ll be a sad day when he goes.”