The major January transfer decision that could shape Newcastle’s future under Eddie Howe

Ever since Eddie Howe took charge at St. James’ Park, Newcastle have built a successful team on a clear tactical foundation – hard pressing, a high defensive line and a combative midfield that effectively features three box-to-box midfielders at once, all chasing lost causes, constricting space for the opposition and delivering swift counter-attacks. This January however, that could start to change.

The midfield three has remained largely familiar since the summer. Lewis Miley may be starting to come into his own and challenge for starts but otherwise it’s been the familiar axis of Bruno Guimarães, Joelinton and Sandro Tonali in operation – and it’s been hard not to notice that the trio don’t feel quite as effective and impactful as they have in the recent past.

As Newcastle gear up for the January transfer window, they are widely reported to be considering the signing of a new midfielder, with several names on their radar. Two, in particular stand out – Kees Smit and Lamine Camara. One would represent a change of tack, the other continuity. So how much of an impact could this window have on Newcastle?

Newcastle target Kees Smit represents continuity – but is that the right way forward?

Individual performances offer a simple explanation for Newcastle’s midfield not being at its best of late, with Joelinton in particular not quite himself over the first half of the 2025/26 season - but there’s also a sense that the tactical paradigm is shifting across the Premier League and leaving that three-man midfield set-up behind.

We live in a world in which the high lines and high presses that were so popular a few years ago are gradually becoming defunct. Defences around the Premier League are more press-resistant than ever before, more comfortable under duress, and high lines are being exploited more ruthlessly by teams that are adapting to play more direct football, attacking the space in behind.

Newcastle were one of the most aggressive pressing teams in the league a short while ago but they too are adapting to this new reality. Their defensive line is now starting rather deeper than it did two years ago and their attacking press is more measured than it was when Howe first took over. That’s been a necessary adaptation to the tactical flow of the top flight, but it’s also making the midfield something of a problem.

With teams sitting deeper, the playing space is getting larger and more ground has to be covered by the midfield – and that makes it much harder for that all-action box-to-box style to be effective. That may explain why Newcastle’s midfield hasn’t been able to impose itself on games as regularly as it once did.

That makes the connection made in a number of media outlets (such as The Athletic) between Newcastle and AZ Alkmaar youngster Kees Smit intriguing. The 19-year-old is an outstanding playmaking talent who has shone in the Eredivisie over the past year, but also a natural box-to-box player – high energy, tremendous stamina, a turnover machine off the ball and a natural ball-carrier on it. He’d be an excellent signing by any sane standards. He would also represent continuity.

That may not be a bad thing, and Howe may well continue to believe that the strengths of his system outweigh the extent to which the Premier League’s tactical meta-game is moving away from it. A coherent, consistent tactical identity has plenty of positives in its own right, too.

But Newcastle already have at least four fine box-to-box midfielders – five if you don’t hold Joe Willock’s frequent injury problems against him – and signing Smit this January (due to mass interest from other major teams, a winter raid is seen as the club’s best chance of signing Smit while they have the ready money and some suitors do not) would suggest a continuation of the aggressive three man system regardless of the arguments for change and adaptation. The same would be true of signing AS Monaco’s Lamine Camara, another brilliant young midfielder who fits the same broad description.

Granted, both would also represent an investment in the future with Joelinton inching towards 30 and Tonali constantly being pursued by Serie A’s traditional giants, especially AC Milan. They could move on in a year or two and players like Smit and Camara would be ideal replacements. But if Howe wanted to adapt his tactical system, it would make more sense to target a different kind of player and use their January spending power to set that ball rolling. They just might.

The Leicester City star who could take Newcastle in a different direction

While Smit and Camara represent transfer targets who are cut from the same cloth as those already present, a third name that has been circulating – that of Bilal El Khannouss, would be something quite different. The Athletic and Sky Sports are among several outlets who attest to Newcastle’s admiration for the Morocco international, who impressed in patches at Leicester City last season and is now on loan at VfB Stuttgart.

Newcastle were one of several Premier League sides linked with the 21-year-old over the summer before he moved to the Bundesliga – and while his loan at Stuttgart, combined with FIFA regulations which restrict a player from playing for more than two teams in the same season, mean that he would not be available in January, interest in a summer transfer suggests at least some willingness to take the midfield set-up in a new direction.

El Khannouss is a classical attacking midfielder, used to sitting in the pocket behind the striker, taking defenders on and playing final balls. He has plenty of talent in those areas, but to ask him to do the grunt work that Bruno, Joelinton and their ilk excel at would be to force a square peg into a round hole.

It’s possible that they view El Khannouss as a winger going forward, given his skill-set, but at least as likely that they would sign him with the intention of moving towards a 4-2-3-1 formation, or another system which would move them away from the box-to-box style that has been such a prominent part of Howe’s style of play at St. James’ Park.

With questions also hanging over how Howe intends to play Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade at the same time, it may be that Newcastle are due a rethink of their fundamental strategy anyway – and a number ten such as El Khannouss could be one piece of that puzzle.

If they do end up signing El Khannouss, or a player like him, then it probably signals a shift which will redefine the way that Newcastle play football, and perhaps bring them more into line with the overriding tactical direction of the division. Or they could sign Smit or Camara (or even both) and plough the same furrow and hope that bloody-minded force of will prevails. We may well know much more by the end of January.