by If you look closely at the celebratory photos in the dressing room that follow every Newcastle United win you will be able to see Lewis Hall lurking in the background with a smile that falls into the ‘forced’ category.
This is the curious case of the £28 million summer signing who became Newcastle’s mystery man and a loan transfer when nobody seems to know for sure what will happen.
When Newcastle announced the signing of young Newcastle fan Hall from Chelsea in the summer, it looked like he would fill their need for a young full-back to put pressure on Dan Burn.
It was a strange deal. Newcastle paid around £4 million to take the 19-year-old on loan for the season and are obligated to pay a further £24 million to make the move permanent.
But Hall has only started one Premier League game, against Bournemouth, back in November where he was taken off at half-time in their 2-0 win. He also started in Newcastle’s 2–0 Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund that same month, but was substituted at half-time. Hall has managed 104 minutes of Premier League football this season and even during the club’s injury crisis in December, he has only been used as a substitute late in games.
Newcastle made the move in order to continue to comply with the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules, while Chelsea were willing to wait on full payment for their academy graduate until the following summer.
The fee represents a net profit for Chelsea, who have their own PSR concerns, as he is a domestic player. But there is still no guarantee that they will receive that money as Eddie Howe confirmed on Friday that the teenager did not meet the criteria for the loan move to be a permanent deal.
Telegraph Sport tries to make sense of a confusing situation…
Why didn’t Halla play?
Former director of football Dan Ashworth was the main reason for the deal, with Howe happy enough to take a player he believed could be one of the best left-backs in the country.
Reality, however, quickly dawned on the Newcastle manager. Hall is raw and not as advanced in his development as he first thought. He lacks the defensive awareness and physicality to produce the performances that Howe needs for the first team.
There have been flashes of quality, most notably his first goal for the club in the Carabao Cup win over Manchester United in the autumn, but Hall is a midfielder turned full-back and he has shown.
With Burn injured before Christmas and Matt Targett also missing through injury, Howe preferred to play right-back Tino Livramento on that side of the defence.
The brutal truth is, Hall isn’t good enough right now to be a starting left-back in the Premier League and Howe doesn’t feel he could be better deployed in midfield either.
But he urged people to recognize Hall for what he is – a youngster with potential who Newcastle signed for the future, not the present.
“In terms of my thoughts, I’ve been preparing for Lewis to be at Newcastle for many years,” Howe said when asked about Hall’s future on Tyneside.
“He was always brought in with a long-term view, not a short-term signing. It’s a long-term signing.”
Are Newcastle going to sign him permanently?
This is where things get worse as Howe confirmed that it was not up to Newcastle, at the moment, to make the loan move permanent at the end of the season.
Asked if the criteria had been met for Newcastle to sign Hall, Howe replied: “I don’t think that has happened yet, but I hope it will very soon.”
When pressed to say what those criteria were, Howe declined to do so, adding: “You’re digging too deep now.”
It’s a strange approach to a direct question. Sources have insisted that Newcastle will have to sign Hall in the summer and pay Chelsea the much-needed cash, but as long as the criteria for that obligation are not yet met, there is doubt.
It begs the obvious question: is Howe, aware of the fact that PSR will be a concern for Newcastle again this summer, refused to play Hall because he does not want appearance clauses to be inserted as the money can be better spent elsewhere when the window opens? It is possible, although this has been denied by sources.
Newcastle’s league position in May is also thought to be relevant. There have been suggestions that Newcastle will not confirm Hall’s permanent signing until they are mathematically safe.
That seems inevitable, although there are still claims, unfounded, that Newcastle must finish above a certain position in the league rather than avoid relegation. Again, this has not been confirmed or denied.
If Newcastle pull out of the deal, what does this mean for Chelsea?
The money for Hall will not be available until July even if the move becomes permanent, as expected. So it won’t help Chelsea – who announced losses of £90 million in their latest accounts – to comply with PSR rules for this season anyway.
Clubs are only allowed to carry combined losses of £105 million over three years and Chelsea are believed to be planning to sell a number of squad players before the end of June to get back on track financially.
However, the money for Hall will be very useful in terms of funding their summer recruitment plans and it would be a huge blow for the club if he were to return to Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea would not get anything like £28 million for him now, given how little he has played at Newcastle this season.
As Howe has spoken positively about Hall and his future at the club, there is no doubt that signing him was a mistake. Newcastle needed first team-ready players last summer and pledged to spend part of this summer’s budget on a player who couldn’t break into the side, even with no other suitable players available who specialized in that job.
