Newcastle United

Newcastle United fans wishing to watch highlights of their 1-1 draw against Liverpool on Sunday were given a fright after Match of the Day 2 subtitles referred to the Magpies as "black and white scum." 

Those weren't the actual words uttered by BBC commentator Guy Mowbray, and the Mirror's Jake Polden explained the error appeared to be a computer mix-up.

Referring to Daniel Sturridge's imperious record against Newcastle, Mowbray said: "Sturridge has scored in all four of his previous starts at Newcastle. For the Reds against the team in black and white, he boasts five goals in five appearances."

However, viewers using closed captions were given a much different description of Sunday's hosts, and bookmakers Betway provided a screenshot of the error in question:

Looks like a Sunderland fan was in charge of the #MOTD subtitles last night... pic.twitter.com/lUvdkmnTz1

— betway (@betway) October 2, 2017

Simon Meechan of Chronicle Live provided a statement from the BBC explaining the mishap, which read: “Our live subtitling service is normally very accurate and makes our content much more accessible, but there are times when unfortunate errors occur. On this occasion the error was spotted and corrected immediately.”

Philippe Coutinho opened the scoring with a brilliant strike from distance before Newcastle exposed Liverpool's defensive holes once again and equalised through striker Joselu to earn a 1-1 draw.

Seven games into the new season and promoted outfit Newcastle are faring better than many might have predicted of them upon their return to the Premier League:

Seven matches down, the #PL table as it stands... pic.twitter.com/YvzY9xq7PR

— Premier League (@premierleague) October 1, 2017

Polden explained "scum" is a term commonly used by Sunderland fans to describe local rivals Newcastle, but there's no suggestion Sunday's Match of the Day 2 slip was anything to do with the Wearsiders.

Newcastle United striker Aleksandar Mitrovic will serve a three-match suspension after accepting a violent conduct charge from the Football Association.

BBC Sport explained that Mitrovic's ban came as a result of an apparent elbow on West Ham United midfielder Manuel Lanzini during his side's 3-0 win over the Hammers on Sunday.

Sky Sports News confirmed the ban on Wednesday:

BREAKING: @NUFC striker Aleksandar Mitrovic banned for three games after accepting FA charge of violent conduct. #SSN pic.twitter.com/LmaWmwmT48

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) August 30, 2017

The Serbia international will miss Newcastle's upcoming fixtures against Swansea City, Stoke City and Brighton & Hove Albion as a result of the suspension.

Mitrovic's ban is bittersweet considering he also came off the bench to score his first goal of the season against West Ham, after which Sky Sports News reporter Keith Downie sympathised with Magpies manager Rafa Benitez:

Mitrovic's clash with Lanzini is an example of exactly why Benitez hasn't trusted him enough to play him much over the past year.

— Keith Downie (@SkySports_Keith) August 29, 2017

At just 22 years of age, the forward has already cultivated a reputation for being hot-headed, and this latest show of ill-discipline will only provide his critics with further ammunition.

FourFourTwo writer Kristan Heneage also recently bemoaned Mitrovic's attitude, which could cost him in Newcastle's bounce-back season in the English top flight:

Mitrovic, much like Shelvey, is drinking in last chance saloon. Any ability, any potential, is scrubbed out by an irresponsible attitude.

— Kris Heneage (@KHeneage) August 29, 2017

Mitrovic has been a prolific force at previous clubs Partizan Belgrade and Anderlecht, but a tally of 17 goals in 67 total appearances for Newcastle, per Transfermarkt, points to a less proficient figure at St. James' Park.

Had he not been involved in any altercation with Lanzini, Mitrovic could have looked to the West Ham win to provide a springboard for the rest of his season as Squawka noted the effect he had on proceedings:

Aleksandar Mitrovic's game by numbers vs. West Ham:

18 minutes
3 shots
2 chances created
2 aerial duels won
1 take-on
1 goal

Huge impact 👊 pic.twitter.com/2Ra0hCUby1

— Squawka (@Squawka) August 26, 2017

Mitrovic missed the first three games of Newcastle's Championship campaign in 2016-17 after being shown a red card on the last day of the 2015-16 Premier League season against Tottenham Hotspur.

It seemed as though the Serb had shown a turn for the better after failing to see red in 29 appearances for the club last term, although the FA's decision suggests Benitez has more work cut out for him in shaping the attacker.

"I told the girl in the book shop I was looking for How to Be a Film Producer. She looked out the window and saw the Ferrari, heard the English accent, and suddenly I’m waking up the following morning next to her and her girlfriend. I thought, ‘This never happened to me when I was working in publishing.’"

It’s just gone past 11 a.m. in Los Angeles and Mike Jefferies is midway through a sprawling symposium on the subject of how he made one of football film culture’s most cherished artifacts, the 2005 film Goal! It’s the story of Santiago Munez, the young boy from an L.A. barrio who defies the odds to win a contract with Newcastle United in the Premier League.

It’s a narrative dripping in cliche from the moment Nunez is spotted playing street soccer by English former-pro-turned-L.A.-mechanic Glen Foy, to the injury-time winner at the season’s finale that catapults the American wonderkid and his team into the Champions League. You couldn’t make it up. But if you did, it would look something like this. Which is precisely what Jefferies did.

The film has been held in mixed regard in the UK. Considering the high esteem in which English football holds itself, that is hardly surprising. Goal! was aimed, at least from a marketing perspective, at those developing football markets where there was not already a rushing tide of interest fuelled by a thriving football league and more than a century of associated culture. The authorities—that is to say, the game’s self-appointed guardians, be they administrative in Switzerland or commercial in the US–had a message to spread. Hence, the relationship between the film’s two major stakeholders—the filmmakers and the football clubs—became a symbiotic exchange of access for exposure.

Goal!’s genesis goes back more than 15 years, and has its roots in a real-life football blockbuster. It was May 2001 and Jefferies had travelled back to Cannes, where as a newcomer to film he had been immersing himself in the Cannes Film Festival “doing research”. He came from Dortmund, having just witnessed his beloved Liverpool beat Deportivo Alaves 5-4 in the final of the UEFA Cup at the Westfalenstadion, completing a unique domestic and European cup treble.

He was staying at the Hotel du Cap, the glitzy enclave that for two weeks every year becomes a temporary home to the glitterati of the film industry. It is austere to the bone, a shorthand for refinement and arch exclusivity.

“There was a little fraternity that would gather around the swimming pool every day where everybody kind of got to know one another,” recalls Jefferies. “I walked back into the pool area on the morning after the UEFA Cup Final wearing this ridiculous bright crimson, scarlet shirt that I had bought outside the stadium announcing Liverpool’s treble. Which was really not the thing to do at the Hotel du Cap.

“So here I am, an absolute lout and probably still drunk from the night before, in this ridiculous T-shirt, and suddenly there’s a clap. Then there’s another clap, and then a full ripple. And they weren’t clapping me of course, they were clapping the incredible 5-4 game that everybody had been watching the previous evening on TV and that historic victory. It was a very surreal moment where I thought, ‘F--k, that’s it!’ Here I was at the heart of the Cannes Film Festival in this garish red shirt, and it was getting this reaction. It was a light bulb moment. There had never been a big movie made about football.”

How much you subscribe to that assessment is a matter of personal taste. Certainly there have been football films that have been hugely influential, and which have left an indelible mark on the culture of football fandom. Escape to Victory and The Damned United have, to different extents and for different generations, piggybacked on the dramatic potential football has to tickle the senses. When Saturday Comes and Bend It Like Beckham have been loathed and loved seemingly at the same time. But arguably none have gone as close to the bone as Goal! with the way it embedded itself within the football DNA, rousing the undying optimist that exists in some dormant form inside every football fan. In football they say it’s the hope that kills you. On the silver screen, it makes things come to life.

The idea relied on one fairly central tenant: It must be made in the world of football. Filmmaker Oliver Stone, the first associate in a sequence of unlikely bedfellows for a football underdog story, advised Jefferies not to make the film in spite of the football industry, but rather in cooperation with it. Stone’s 1999 film Any Given Sunday had written its story into a fictional world and had suffered because of it. This time, there was to be no Premier League equivalent of the fictional NFL team Miami Sharks, which, as Jefferies says, would have cut the legs of authenticity from under the film.

It was through a network of influencers, the kind that is the lifeblood of the two industries that were to collide on Goal!, that Jefferies found himself in front of FIFA’s then-president, Sepp Blatter. Jefferies knew a sports business consultant, Jonathan Harris, who in turn had a relationship with one of Blatter’s closest advisors, Peter Hargitay. It was Hargitay, a man who had the president’s ear, who set up the meeting for Jefferies with Blatter.

“I just asked for a couple of encouraging words into the ears of the people who run the game, at club level and with sponsors. The plan was always for the first film to take place in the Premier League in England, and then for the second one to take place in the Champions League with one of the big continental clubs. And Blatter was really helpful. He opened a lot of doors for me. It felt a bit like going to meet the head of one of the five families,” he says with reflective a smile. “It was surreal. Suddenly, I was sat doing a press conference in Zurich next to Sepp Blatter. Having been a football nut all my life, that was so surreal. For a while, it was like being inside a shadowy star chamber. The stories I could tell you...” laughs Jefferies. “I really should write a book about it!”

There is a sense in which Goal! plugs into the lived experiences that Jefferies went through to get his film off the ground. A self-made man from Merseyside, he had been a leading industry figure in media and publishing before L.A. had sucked him into the world of filmmaking, a decision which he credits in part to a conversation with the late Brittany Murphy at a dinner at the turn of the century.

His world had changed quickly and radically. Publishing was in the past, replaced instead by Hollywood glitz and the occasional salacious rendezvous amongst the stacks of LA book stores. But one part of his past would never leave, and it was to present a Faustian dilemma that would make the blood of a football fan run cold. The film needed a football club, and there was only one place that Liverpool disciple and Scouser Jefferies was going to look.

“It was one of the worst moments I’ve had in my professional life,” he says of the day in 2001 when he took his proposal to Anfield chief executive Rick Parry. “The worst thing that’s happened since I’ve been an adult.”

The way it unfolded was tragicomic. Jefferies had flown from Cape Town to the UK to meet with Parry and the Liverpool hierarchy. At the airport, he had brought a jacket which had been handed to him in a Manchester United bag. This was to provide him with his opening salvo.

“I said to Rick that this was the reason Liverpool should do the film with us. At this point, in 2002, Manchester United had pretty much caught up with Liverpool and were pulling away. David Moores [Liverpool’s owner] was doing what he could to correct that. I’d arranged with Rick’s assistant for there to be a TV with a DVD player, so I could show this three-minute short I had made in Cape Town to help give him an idea of what we wanted to do.

“Initially, Rick wasn’t interested in seeing it. After I said, ‘Look, I’ve made this for you. I’ve come a long way to show it to you,’ he relented and he sent someone to go and find one of these old TVs with a VHS slot in the front. So here were are in the Liverpool board room, the room where every player that I had up on my wall as a kid signed their contracts, my hallowed chamber, and the cable for the TV won’t reach the wall. The most surreal moment of my life was me and Rick Parry picking up the Liverpool FC boardroom table and moving it closer to the wall so we could plug in a TV.”

Parry was disparaging, sour, uninterested. Jefferies was heartbroken. But things only got worse.

The next day, the idea was peddled to Peter Kenyon and Peter Draper in the commercial offices of Old Trafford. Kenyon and Draper loved it. Suddenly it was United, not Liverpool, who were potentially going to be the film’s fulcrum. Within the month, Jefferies was back in L.A. being courted by Sir Alex Ferguson, hobnobbing with Ryan Giggs. “I wanted to kill myself,” Jefferies says.

By 2002, the commercialization of English football was augmenting at breakneck speed. The formula for success had changed and new blueprints were emerging to harness audiences in a worldwide, digital era. United had surpassed Liverpool as a market force and as the dominant football power. The Anfield commercial operation was average, housed in modest offices clad in cheap looking, wood-effect plastic panelling. United’s were all smoke glass and chrome. As Jefferies describes it: “Kubrick-esque, like something out of a Christopher Nolan film. It was the future”.

It was no accident that the same people who had aggressively marketed United to the world, who had put the club crest on a Duty Free plastic bag at Cape Town International Airport, had also spotted the potential for their brand in Jefferies’ proposal. They had recognised Goal! for what it was: a chance to ruthlessly promote the club to new markets, primarily in the U.S. and Asia, but for which the producers would put up all of the capital and undertake the majority of the work. There was just one problem.

“Driving away from a meeting in L.A. with Ferguson and the others, it wasn’t even bittersweet for me,” says Jefferies. “I just felt sick with it.”

He makes no attempt now to disguise that he was thinking with his heart, despite the undoubted coup he had pulled off in winning United’s cooperation without shelling out a penny.

“As a Liverpool fan, I would rather have not made the film than done it with Manchester United,” he says.

There was not much more than a few hours between leaving the meeting with United in L.A. and the call coming from Freddy Shepherd, then Newcastle United chairman, asking to meet with Jefferies in “the hotel where they filmed Pretty Woman” to discuss “this football film you’re doing.” Once Shepherd had made his club’s interest clear, the deal with Old Trafford was dead in the water, and the project had a new course.

Make no mistake: The wrangling that went on to get Goal! on its feet was a true corporate hustle. The $50m deal that was struck between the producers and Adidas was, at the time - and still is - the biggest ever between a corporate brand and a film production. The two parties recognised the potential each other had to offer in a flash. The symbiosis was palpable. The only real surprise was that a relationship of this kind had never been synthesized before.

Danny Stepper had been an account executive at Coca-Cola in Seattle before teaming up with Jefferies to work on the film in 2002.

“Mike was a maniac,” he says of their first meeting. “He’s calmed down a lot since, but back then, he was just a house on fire. He’d acquired something of a reputation in Beverly Hills, and when we first talked about making the film, he was just so, so persuasive.”

Goal! was a brand-building exercise, its sponsorship deals unprecedented in scope, according to Stepper. Coca-Cola broke its mold in going in to bat for the film, making it just the second feature production ever to feature on its packaging, after Harry Potter. Former commercial director and close friend of Stepper, the late Chuck Fruit, was a great believer in connecting the Coke brand with the raw passion of sport, primarily football. Adidas saw a chance to tap fresh markets, and the film was marketed around the world via its retail partners. Disney, who became the film’s distributor, put $40 million into advertising alone, Stepper said.

Stepper’s influence was indispensable. As an insider at Coke, he greased the gears, and his commercial acumen won the trust of the company’s decision-makers from the beginning of negotiations. As Jefferies had done at Old Trafford, Stepper found in Fruit an ally whose business sense chimed along with that of two excitable, untested producers and an enthusiasm for a fairy story set in the world of football. FIFA, Adidas and Coke all held hands together, providing a mutual assurance that the unlikely pairing of an expat media mogul and a savvy marketing man could never have offered alone.

“Every sport needs its Rocky,” says Stepper.

The alignment of the brands came easily, especially with the validation provided by FIFA’s endorsement. “Tactical issues, “Stepper says, then corrects himself, ”opportunities, actually,” were the tricky part.  The film was almost derailed when the pair hired the wrong director. Lancashire-born Michael Winterbottom, began shooting without a script and had ideas for Goal! which clashed badly with the Disney-themed, family-oriented intentions of the producers and sponsors. The two also naively began filming without a distribution deal in place, an almost unheard-of step in the film world. Had the deal with Disney not materialized, the project—along with its expensive baggage—would have been ditched, its legacy nothing more than an $8 million hole in the ground.

“Most film projects don’t recover from the mistakes we made,” says Stepper. “It was almost devastating. But somehow, we found a way to win. We stopped the production and then got the production back up, which almost never happens in Hollywood. I think we actually benefited from our own non-experience. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. Where most productions fall down, we just picked ourselves up.”

The deal with Disney rested on the global reach that a film about football would make possible. Mark Zoradi was the head of Disney International and made the call on the premise that, unlike traditional Hollywood sports films predicated on U.S.-oriented sports, Goal! could expect to sell around the world.

“We’d started shooting by then and the meter was running” says stepper, “so we really needed that meeting with Mark at Disney to go well. Without it, we’d have been in a very deep and dark place.”

Adidas’ involvement was too lucrative to be utilized only for a single 90-minute feature film. Suddenly, the producers were thinking sequel, franchise, legacy. There were commercial doors still left unopened, but also a narrative potential that had only just begun to be explored by the first film. Santiago Munez’s ambition was not going to be satiated by a squad place at Newcastle United, and before the film was even cast, its creator was back in the boardroom looking for partners for Goal II, this time at the world’s most recognizable football brand.

Jefferies went to meet Real Madrid, who got it just as quickly as Manchester United had. Commercially speaking, they were light years ahead of Liverpool. At the first meeting between the parties, Jose Angel Sanchez, then the commercial director at the Bernabeu and now CEO, laid down terms that were concise and to the point: Shake my hand now, cancel your meetings with any other clubs, and we have a deal; but if you walk out of here without shaking hands, don’t ever show your face here again. No crisis of conscience this time for Jefferies.

“Shortly after we agreed with Real, I was told by Jose Angel - who is still one of my very closest friends - to arrive at Barajas Airport one weekend at a given time, not knowing what to expect,” he says. “So I arrive on the Friday and I’m shown up to this room where civilians aren’t normally allowed into and they’re all there: Beckham, Ronaldo, Figo, Zidane. And I’m taken to one side and given a Real Madrid tracksuit and told just to immerse myself in the experience. And then off we go on a jet to Barcelona for the Clasico.

“Then we get to Barcelona and we find that we have to walk through the civilian part of the airport, and all of a sudden, the atmosphere changes in the group. Everything becomes quite tense. And when the door through to arrivals opens, we are met with this wall of hundreds of Barcelona fans, an absolute sea of bile and hate. We were in single file as we passed. I think I had Roberto Carlos in front of me and Ronaldo behind, and we’re being spat at and having god knows what thrown at us.

“And that’s how it was for the whole time we were there. There was maybe a thousand Barca fans camped out at the hotel who wouldn’t let us in, rocking the bus and throwing bricks, smashing the windows. And I’m there in the middle of this chaos, just pinching myself. You cannot buy this kind of experience. I felt like a fan who had snuck backstage.”

Those blurred lines between fiction and reality are what have helped Goal! to survive as a culturally curious artifact. The teams, players and stadiums that prop up the weekly drama of the Premier League are the film’s canvas, but a fictional landscape is painted in, which puts fans in neither one place nor another. At the end of one Newcastle victory at St. James’s Park during the 2003-04 season, the lead actors, Kuno Becker and Alessandro Nivola, leapt from behind an advertising hoarding and joined the players as they congratulated each other on the pitch. The Newcastle team knew nothing about it.   

Jefferies remembers the incredulous reaction of MLS chief Don Garber upon seeing Becker trot out as part of the Real lineup during a pre-season friendly tournament in Madrid. The following day, Spanish sports daily Marca ran a back page with a red circle around Becker’s face, alongside the headline ‘Who?’ The access afforded to the production was unprecedented, and it created a kind of halfway world which had just enough of the trappings of reality for fans to accept it, but which somehow still looked and felt alien.

Whatever its pitfalls, the film took more than $27.5 million globally at the box office, though only around $4 million of that came in the U.S. Home media sales in the U.S. boosted that figure by another $12 million, which when taken together, represents a neat enough return for a film where much of the risk was mitigated by free access to major brands. This was more than 10  years before Premier League media revenues hit the billion-pound mark, and Goal! was absorbed by football’s developing markets at a time when English and European football were rapidly becoming more conspicuous internationally.

Goal! came along at unique moment. Whether we believe the film piggybacked onto the game’s growing popularity around the world or helped to transport it there probably depends on a deeper analysis of changing digital trends within sport in the first few years of the new millennium.

The story of Santiago Munez, though, doesn’t make these demands of us. It is a romance to be experienced on an emotional level, just as its creator found out in the boardrooms of Anfield and Old Trafford. Perhaps that should be enough.

Former Newcastle United midfielder Cheick Tiote has died at the age of 30 after falling unconscious while training with Beijing Enterprises, who signed the player in February 2017.

Reports emerged Monday that Tiote collapsed during training with the Chinese League One club, and Richard Conway of the BBC confirmed the 30-year-old's death via his agent, Emanuele Palladino:

Statement from player's representative. pic.twitter.com/Ziiw4otSme

— Richard Conway (@richard_conway) June 5, 2017

Tiote made 156 appearances for the Magpies over the course of a seven-year spell at St. James' Park, having joined from Eredivisie outfit FC Twente in 2010 for a sum of £3.5 million.

He went on to become a fan favourite in the north-east largely due to his tough-tackling approach and was at one point reportedly courted by Arsenal.

The defensive anchorman had made only 10 appearances for new club Beijing Enterprises, and former Newcastle team-mate Demba Ba was one of the first to express his sadness via social media:

😭😭😭 may Allah gives grant you jannah brother Tiote 😭😭😭

— Demba Ba (@dembabafoot) June 5, 2017

Another former Magpie, Jonas Gutierrez, offered a tribute to Tiote via his official Instagram account:

Tiote will perhaps be best remembered for the stunning volley he scored against Arsenal in February 2011, when the Magpies thundered back from four goals down to clinch a 4-4 draw by virtue of the Ivorian's strike.

That was the only goal Tiote netted for the English club and one of only four he scored in a 12-year professional career, having also represented Dutch club Roda JC and Belgian outfit Anderlecht as a youngster.

Newcastle United won the Sky Bet EFL Championship on the final day of the season as Brighton and Hove Albion conceded in the closing moments at Aston Villa on Sunday.

The Seagulls drew 1-1 after leading in the second half, handing the trophy to the Magpies who defeated Barnsley 3-0.

The play-offs will be contested by Reading, Sheffield Wednesday, Huddersfield Town and Fulham after a frantic final day.

Wigan Athletic and Rotherham United are joined in relegation by Blackburn Rovers, whose victory against Brentford could not save them from the drop.

Here are Sunday's results:

Home	Score	Away
Aston Villa	1-1	Brighton
Brentford	1-3	Blackburn
Bristol City	0-1	Birmingham
Burton	2-4	Reading
Huddersfield	0-3	Cardiff
Newcastle	3-0	Barnsley
Norwich	4-0	QPR
Nottingham Forest	3-0	Ipswich
Rotherham	1-1	Derby
Sheffield Wednesday	1-2	Fulham
Wigan	1-1	Leeds
Wolves	1-0	Preston

Here is the final table:

Pos.	Team	P	W	D	L	GD	PTS
1.	Newcastle United	46	29	7	10	45	94
2.	Brighton	46	28	9	9	34	93
3.	Reading	46	26	7	13	4	85
4.	Sheffield Wednesday	46	24	9	13	15	81
5.	Huddersfield	46	25	6	15	-2	81
6.	Fulham	46	22	14	10	28	80
7.	Leeds	46	22	9	15	14	75
8.	Norwich	46	20	10	16	16	70
9.	Derby	46	18	13	15	4	67
10.	Brentford	46	18	10	18	10	64
11.	Preston	46	16	14	16	1	62
12.	Cardiff	46	17	11	18	-1	62
13.	Aston Villa	46	16	14	16	-1	62
14.	Barnsley	46	15	13	18	-3	58
15.	Wolves	46	16	10	20	-4	58
16.	Ipswich	46	13	16	17	-10	55
17.	Bristol City	46	15	9	22	-6	54
18.	QPR	46	15	8	23	-14	53
19.	Birmingham	46	13	14	19	-19	53
20.	Burton	46	13	13	20	-14	52
21.	Nottingham Forest	46	14	9	23	-10	51
22.	Blackburn Rovers	46	12	15	19	-12	51
23.	Wigan	46	10	12	24	-17	42
24.	Rotherham	46	5	8	33	-58	23

Here are the play-off fixtures:

Date	Leg	Time (BST)	Match
May 13	1st leg	5:30 p.m.	Fulham vs. Reading
May 14	1st leg	12 p.m.	Huddersfield vs. Sheffield Wednesday
May 16	2nd leg	7:45 p.m.	Reading vs. Fulham
May 17	2nd leg	7:45 p.m.	Sheffield Wednesday vs. Huddersfield

      

Final Day Recap

Newcastle are back in the Premier League as winners of the Championship after Brighton conceded in the 89th minute at Villa Park.

It appeared Brighton would cap off a brilliant season with silverware, but Villa dug in and snatched a goal through Jack Grealish.

The result sparked scenes of jubilation at St James' Park after strikes from Ayoze Perez, Chancel Mbemba and Dwight Gayle sealed the points.

The moment was captured by The Times' George Caulkin as the news of Brighton's failure filtered through:

https://twitter.com/CaulkinTheTimes/status/861213295356899330

There was drama at the other end of the table as Blackburn went down on goal difference, with Nottingham Forest saving themselves with a 3-0 win at home to Ipswich Town.

Birmingham City's 1-0 victory away at Bristol City kept them clear of relegation as manager Harry Redknapp celebrated at the final whistle.

Newcastle United booked their spot in next year's Premier League with a 4-1 win over Preston North End on Monday. The win assured the Magpies of a top-two finish in this year's Championship and that they'll avoid the play-offs. Brighton & Hove Albion have already secured promotion.

B/R Football welcomed the Magpies back:

Welcome back to the Premier League, Newcastle United 🙌 pic.twitter.com/pDGvLke7Gg

— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 24, 2017

Ayoze Perez opened the scoring early on and added a second goal, while Christian Atsu and Matt Ritchie also got in on the fun. Preston finished the match with 10 players.

Here's a look at the table:

Pos	Team	PL	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Brighton	44	28	8	8	73	38	+35	92
2	Newcastle United	44	27	7	10	80	40	+40	88
3	Reading	44	24	7	13	63	62	+1	79
4	Sheffield Wednesday	44	23	9	12	58	43	+15	78
5	Huddersfield	43	24	6	13	55	53	+2	78
6	Fulham	44	21	13	10	82	55	+27	76
7	Leeds	44	22	7	15	57	43	+14	73
8	Norwich	44	19	9	16	78	66	+12	66
9	Brentford	44	18	9	17	73	61	+12	63
10	Derby	44	17	12	15	50	48	+2	63
11	Preston	44	16	13	15	63	61	+2	61
12	Aston Villa	44	16	13	15	46	46	0	61
13	Cardiff	44	16	11	17	57	59	-2	59
14	Barnsley	44	15	12	17	63	63	0	57
15	Wolverhampton Wanderers	43	15	10	18	52	54	-2	55
16	Ipswich	44	13	16	15	48	54	-6	55
17	Bristol City	44	14	9	21	59	65	-6	51
18	Burton	44	13	12	19	46	58	-12	51
19	Queens Park Rangers	44	14	8	22	50	62	-12	50
20	Nottingham Forest	44	13	9	22	59	70	-11	48
21	Birmingham	44	11	14	19	42	64	-22	47
22	Blackburn	44	10	15	19	49	64	-15	45
23	Wigan	44	10	11	23	39	55	-16	41
24	Rotherham	44	5	6	33	38	96	-58	21

As expected, Newcastle came out firing, with the fans at St. James' Park creating a phenomenal atmosphere. It took the hosts just seven minutes to take the lead, with Perez tapping home the opener.

But fans who thought the visitors would fold had only a few minutes to celebrate before Jordan Hugill equalised after a wonderful counter. The team's Twitter account showed their ecstatic reaction:

12' PNE break through Hugill and Barkhuizen before the latter swings it back into Hugill who flicks the ball home! Get in!

1-1 #pnefc

— Preston North End FC (@pnefc) April 24, 2017

Preston stopper Chris Maxwell had a few nervy moments on some of Newcastle's crosses, but he also made a fantastic save to deny Aleksandar Mitrovic a goal after 20 minutes. Hugill and Tom Barkhuizen had their chances as well, as the visitors grew into the half.

But shortly before half-time, a perfect counter resulted in Mitrovic playing in Atsu with a fantastic pass, and the speedster didn't hesitate. Per football writer Kristan Heneage, it was Newcastle at their best:

See, that's where Newcastle are at their best -- counter-attacking. Sit off them and they just rack up pass completion numbers.

— Kris Heneage (@KHeneage) April 24, 2017

Preston were too sloppy at the back to have any chance of challenging Newcastle in the second half, and the visitors were lucky Maxwell was on hand to deny Perez another goal. It hardly mattered, as Paul Gallagher handled the ball on the line in an effort to stop a certain goal, giving away a penalty and earning himself a red card.

Dave Seddon of the Lancashire Evening Post didn't lose his sense of humour:

It was a great save from Gallagher to be fair.....

— Dave Seddon (@Sedds_lep) April 24, 2017

Ritchie converted the penalty to give his team a two-goal lead they were unlikely to surrender with the one-man advantage.

Just a couple of minutes later, Perez found the net for a second time, although he probably didn't know it, as the ball took a lucky bounce off the Spaniard after Jonjo Shelvey's corner struck the post.

Per B/R Football, the battle was over:

FACT: Newcastle United are heading back to the Premier League... pic.twitter.com/E6hEbp5u4C

— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 24, 2017

Newcastle spent just one season outside the Premier League, and their return to the highest level of English football was a welcome sight for the historic club.

There's plenty of work to do for the Magpies, however. The team invested heavily during the summer, but the bulk of the purchases were made specifically with promotion in mind. In order to avoid another relegation battle, manager Rafael Benitez will need to get his new additions spot on.

The rest of the Championship's top clubs will fight it out for spots in the play-offs, with one more Premier League ticket on the line.

Tottenham Hotspur have agreed a deal to sell DeAndre Yedlin to Championship side Newcastle United. The north London club confirmed the news on its official Twitter account:

We've reached agreement with Newcastle for the transfer of DeAndre Yedlin. We wish him all the best for the future. pic.twitter.com/IumGEDCg78

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) August 24, 2016

Chris Waugh of the Chronicle reported the fee and the length of contract:

#nufc sign DeAndre Yedlin from #thfc for £5m

— Chris Waugh (@ChrisDHWaugh) August 24, 2016

Five-year deal for Yedlin, who is #nufc 9th summer signing

— Chris Waugh (@ChrisDHWaugh) August 24, 2016

He also relayed these comments from the player, who will now help the Magpies in their bid to make a quick return to the Premier League:

Yedlin: "#nufc is such a big & historic club, & I'm excited to have the honour of playing for them. Hopefully I can do great things here,"

— Chris Waugh (@ChrisDHWaugh) August 24, 2016

Fellow Chronicle writer Lee Ryder also provided these quotes from Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez:

Rafa on Yedlin: "I think he can do really well for us and will give us good competition on the right." #nufc

— Lee Ryder (@lee_ryder) August 24, 2016

Benitez will count on Yedlin to help offset the loss of Dutch full-back Daryl Janmaat, who has signed for Watford, per Louise Taylor of the Guardian.

It's a controversial move for one-time Sunderland man Yedlin, who now joins the Black Cats' local rivals. However, if the United States international wanted first-team football, he couldn't quibble over his new destination.

After all, the 23-year-old hasn't really developed since signing for Spurs in 2014, and a loan move to Sunderland the following year also did little to advance his game.

Going back to Spurs wasn't much of an option for a full-back facing a stacked pecking order at his position. Tottenham can already count on England internationals Danny Rose and Kyle Walker in the starting berths.

Walker plays on the right side, which Yedlin prefers. Both players are similar in style, as they are full-backs defined more by their efforts going forward than by their defensive chops.

Yedlin might have pushed Walker for more playing time this season, but Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino can also call on Ben Davies and Kieran Trippier.

Newcastle United have signed midfielder Isaac Hayden from Arsenal on a five-year deal, it was confirmed on Monday.

News of the transfer came via the club’s official Twitter feed, with the 21-year-old pictured in the famous black and white stripes:

CONFIRMED: Newcastle United have signed @IsaacHayden65 from @Arsenal on a five-year deal

👉🏽 https://t.co/T0pYz024Zv pic.twitter.com/9PNsNXZsfM

— Newcastle United (@NUFC) July 11, 2016

“Newcastle is a massive football club and to be given the opportunity to come here and progress my career is fantastic," said Hayden to the club’s official website. "Being at Arsenal was a great experience, I learned a lot there and have a lot to thank them for, but I needed to move on and so when Newcastle came in for me I jumped at the chance.”

Magpies manager Rafael Benitez hailed Hayden as “a young, strong English player with fantastic potential.” He also noted the versatility of the youngster, as he can operate both in midfield and as a centre-back.

Sky Sports’ Keith Downie broke down what the St James’ Park crowd can expect from their new acquisition:

Saw Isaac Hayden a couple of times for Hull last season. Strong, athletic holding midfielder with a decent range of passing.

— Keith Downie (@SkySports_Keith) July 11, 2016

Hayden leaves the Gunners having only featured for the first team on a couple of occasions in the Capital One Cup; he was part of the Arsenal academy setup for five years before making his full debut against West Bromwich Albion in 2013.

His former club posted the following on their own Twitter feed after the switch was confirmed:

👊 Good luck, @IsaacHayden65! https://t.co/CXwAAuYA9h

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 11, 2016

Hayden spent the previous season on loan at Hull City, where he featured 24 times. The Tigers were eventually promoted to the Premier League via the Championship Playoffs.

Under Benitez, Newcastle will also be seeking to gain promotion. The Magpies were relegated in shock circumstances at the end of the 2015-16 campaign, although they did show some signs of life under the tutelage of their new manager, who took over from the sacked Steve McClaren in March.

Midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum has left Newcastle United and joined Liverpool for an undisclosed fee, his former club announced Friday.

“[He seems] a great man - from the outside - because I don’t know how he works yet and I have to work with him," Wijnaldum said of Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp.

“[But] I always love to watch him, his passion as a trainer, I like how he enjoys the game," Wijnaldum added on Klopp. "He gives something back to the group [with his passion] so I look forward to working with him.”

As we can see here courtesy of OptaJoe, the Dutchman was especially impressive on home soil last season:

11 - Wijnaldum is the first player to score 11+ goals in a PL season with all of them coming at home. Manor.

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) May 15, 2016

It’s easy to see why Liverpool would be keen on the player. Wijnaldum, at his best, is energetic, effective in the final third and can thrive in a variety of different roles on the field. Alongside better players, he has technical quality to have more of an impact as well.

While there were bright moments in his debut term in English football, there are areas he needs to refine. Most pertinently, Wijnaldum didn’t always show an appetite for the physical side of the game, something that perhaps explains his poor return in terms of goals away from home.

Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez has committed his future to the club, signing a new three-year contract with the Magpies to end speculation he planned on leaving the team.

The Magpies confirmed the news on their official website. In an official statement, Benitez expressed his excitement at signing the new deal:

I am extremely pleased to be staying at Newcastle United.

The love I could feel from the fans was a big influence for me in my decision to stay, as was my relationship with Lee Charnley and all the staff.

This is a huge club and I wanted to be part of the great future I can see for Newcastle United.

Managing director Lee Charnley also reacted to the news:

When we brought Rafa to the club in March, we knew he was a phenomenal manager and everything we have seen from him since has only served to reinforce that.

We are therefore delighted to have secured his services for the next three years and I believe with Rafa as manager it gives us the best possible chance of returning to the Premier League at the first time of asking and delivering success for this football club beyond that.

It is clear that Rafa has connected deeply with the club's supporters and we do not underestimate the role they have played in his decision to stay.

The former Real Madrid boss took over from Steve McClaren in March but was unable to guide the club to Premier League safety.  

Under Benitez, Newcastle were unbeaten in their last six Premier League matches, and the team came agonisingly close to avoiding relegation. The Magpies finished the season on a high by beating Tottenham Hotspur 5-1, and there's a strong belief the team will earn promotion back to the Premier League in a hurry.

Per Mark Ogden of the Independent, the club is making the right decision by sticking with the Spaniard:

Benitez staying at Newcastle is a managerial game-changer. And a good one. Big name managers can no longer hold out just for PL jobs..

— Mark Ogden (@MarkOgden_) May 25, 2016

Newcastle need stability right now, and Benitez is a top manager with years of experience with some of the biggest clubs in the world. While his recent record hasn't been great―he flopped with Napoli and Real―there are few better managers available, and his short stint at the end of the 2015-16 campaign was promising.

The decision to stay at St James' Park makes sense for Benitez, who wasn't the most popular manager in the world after his sacking by Real. United have been stuck in a downward spiral for years, but the team has plenty of young talent, a loyal fanbase and excellent infrastructure―the tools are there for a quick rebuild.

Follow @ReverschPass