Newcastle United's owners have a 'long-term plan' but Nick Hammond has revealed that the hierarchy turned to him because they needed someone who had experience in 'navigating through the complexities' of the January transfer window.
Hammond provided a consultancy service in the run-up to an intense mid-season trading period after being sounded out by the hierarchy, who were keen to tap into the former technical director's experience ahead of their first window in charge. Newcastle, after all, did not have a sporting director at the time - Dan Ashworth remains on gardening leave at Brighton - and Hammond previously provided a consultancy service at Celtic during the summer of 2019.
Among those who backed 'a very good move by the club' at the time was Alan Pardew. Pardew worked with Hammond at West Brom and Reading, and the former Newcastle boss previously told ChronicleLive that the 54-year-old was a 'true, experienced and honest operator'.
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It fell to Hammond to do the checks and balances in the background at Newcastle ahead of the window opening and the Londoner also offered his opinion on targets who had already been identified. Newcastle went on to sign Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood, Bruno Guimaraes, Dan Burn and Matt Targett (on loan), and Hammond relished being involved in the build-up.
"It was a really interesting and quite exciting opportunity to come and work with the new owners of which there are three groups; Eddie Howe, who I knew from being in the game for a long time; and Steve Nickson, who's an extremely good, experienced head of recruitment," Hammond the told Training Ground Guru's scouting and recruitment webinar.
"Newcastle have a long-term plan, for sure, but they had a short-term problem when we were going into the January window. Quite clearly they wanted to appoint a new CEO - the CEO had left - and a new sporting director and build the club out from there.
"But, in the short-term, they were approaching the January window and looking for someone who had a degree of experience navigating through the complexities of any transfer window - let alone a January transfer window. That was the start of the conversation and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
"It was interesting in so much as here you have got a group of people who all want to achieve the same thing, but they're new. They're almost thrown together. I don't mean that in a haphazard way, but it was a new group of owners, a new head coach and Steve, who's been in the building for a long time. All of a sudden, in a very short space of time, you have to come together and make some decisions to try and strengthen the team for what is the short-term ambition of staying in the Premier League."
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