Newcastle United prepare behind-the-scenes appointment as key man joins Manchester City

Newcastle United have advertised for a new Coach Analyst to replace Mark Leyland, who is joining Premier League rivals Manchester City at the end of the season.

Eddie Howe poached Leyland from Liverpool less than a month after he was appointed as Magpies ‘head coach in November 2021. The pair previously worked together at Burnley.

Howe says Leyland has played an “integral” role in United’s transformation, where the club has gone from relegation candidates to Champions League qualification contenders.

Leyland will remain for the remainder of the campaign before taking a ‘new international position’ working across a number of clubs within the City Football Group.

Speaking in February, Howe said: “Losing key members of staff is never ideal but I’ve been here many times before when that’s happened. It’s part of growing.

“People will always be looking for elite members of staff and that’s one of the things we have to be aware of as a football I think. Mark goes, but he’ll go with our best wishes.”

This week, Newcastle have started the process of finding Leyland’s replacement by enlisting the help of recruitment partners Executives in Sports Group.

“Joining one of the most exciting projects in elite global sport, you will work closely with the Head Coach, Eddie Howe, and Sporting Director, Dan Ashworth, to produce and present insightful, compelling and inspirational coaching analysis to the first team squad as directed by the Head Coach,” the job description read. “As such coaching experience and highly developed knowledge / understanding of best practice analysis and techniques in an elite football environment are essential.

“You will utilise the most effective suite of technologies to enable the delivery of analysis to the coaching staff, multi-disciplinary team and players of Newcastle United. These will include Hudl Sports Code, Studio Telestration, Keynote, Second Spectrum and Wyscout; therefore, you must possess significant practical experience of using these tools.

“You will be naturally collaborative and be able to develop authentic and effective working relationships with the Head Coach and multi-disciplinary team. Effective communication and presentation skills are essential to ensure the appropriate delivery of compelling pre-match, opposition, live-match, post-match, set-play, training and player development video and data analysis to the men’s First Team.”

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