Newcastle United are in a new era, with manager Eddie Howe lifting the club from the lower end of the Premier League table to a place in this season's Champions League in less than two years.
Prior to the 45-year-old's appointment in November 2021, the Magpies had been moored in the bottom half of the table since earning promotion from the Championship in 2017, and in fact, has languished below expectations for much of the reign of Mike Ashley.
The £300m PIF club takeover in October 2021 signalled a new chapter for the club and one which tantalised an illustrious future.
Still early into this new phase, there is optimism that the Magpies can now secure a perpetual place among England and Europe's elite.
How have Newcastle performed under Howe?
In the 2021/22 campaign, the Magpies were grounded and anxiously seeking a route away from danger upon Howe's appointment, but the transformative effect that the former Bournemouth boss's appointment and the shrewd work on the transfer front created paved the foundation for what is now an utter triumph.
Signing the likes of Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn and Bruno Guimaraes, the Tyneside club rose to an 11th-placed finish, but what ensued transcended such success by some distance.
Indeed, last season, Newcastle's various points of progress dovetailed and the side forged a cohesive, compact and consistent season, suffering defeat just five times all term (with four such losses coming against Liverpool x2, Manchester City and Arsenal) in the Premier League and securing a top-four spot.
As such, Champions League football beckons and is now only weeks away,
The Toon team finished the 2022/23 term with the Premier League's joint-best defence – alongside champions Manchester City – with the preferred backline of Burn, Sven Botman, Fabian Schar and Trippier resolute and rock-solid in front of Pope's goal.
One player who was stricken on the sidelines across the duration of such a resounding year is Emil Krafth, who has missed 43 matches after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) against Tranmere Rovers in the Carabao Cup second round, his first start of the season.
Should Newcastle sell Emil Krafth?
Having made 64 appearances for Newcastle, Krafth, who is on £55k-per-week, has never truly cemented the right-back position as his own, even before that injury, after signing from French side Amiens for a fee in the region of £5m in 2019.
Never making more than 20 league displays in a term, the numerical breakdown highlights that Krafth has actually cost the club nearly £14m when combining his salary with the transfer fee paid.
To emphasise how inauspicious a transfer it has been, the aforementioned sum equates to £218k per appearance, with very little to show for his efforts, even branded “out of his depth” by Premier League legend Ian Wright in the early days of his career in England's North East.
One thing that is clear is that Howe evidently likes the Swede, who made 14 of his 18 league starts under Howe's wing across the 2021/22 campaign.
It's not so much that Krafth should be directly targetted for departure, rather, he simply doesn't make the grade anymore with the club pushing for sustained prominence at the forefront of the European game.
And with Tino Livramento's initial £32m transfer from Southampton in August, the requisite moves to bolster the squad in the right-back role have clearly already been made.
In an ironic state of polarity, just as Krafth spent the past year shackled to the sidelines, Livramento was strapped to the medical department and missed the lion's share of the Saints' insipid relegation campaign.
Entrusting the youngster with a role in the squad, and for no small sum, insinuates that the Magpies hierarchy have identified their preferred successor to club captain Trippier's commendable role in the right-back position.
Krafth's versatility does work in his favour, competent across the backline, but Lewis Hall – another precocious talent – has also been signed this summer to enrich the pool of talent at the club's disposal.
Sometimes deployed at centre-back, the 42-cap international is unlikely to be the solution on that front either, with a wealth of high-profile and expensive names touted over the summer.
Clearly, that will be an area targeted next summer, perhaps even in winter, minimising Krafth's opportunities even further.
The one-time Amiens ace is also out of contract at the end of the season, and while he will hope to make an impact this season, it is hard to see his role being anything other than peripheral.
Like Krafth, another Newcastle ace who might find themselves headed for the exit sooner rather than later is Matt Targett, with the Englishman completing a £15m permanent transfer last summer after joining Howe's side on loan in the 2021/22 January transfer window.
How good is Matt Targett?
The left-back enjoyed a solid start to life at St. James' Park, with Alan Hutton once claiming that Targett goes "under the radar" with his performances and former Premier League forward Noel Whelan predicting he would "make a massive difference" for the Magpies as they initially sought to escape from relegation danger under Howe's tutelage.
Starting 16 Premier League matches during the latter phase of that debut campaign – missing only the win over Aston Villa due to ineligibility – the 27-year-old recorded an impressive average Sofascore rating of 6.96, averaging 1.2 key passes per game, making 2.3 tackles, 1.5 interceptions and 1.8 clearances each outing.
Krafth, comparatively, has averaged just 0.3 key passes, 1.3 tackles and 0.9 interceptions per match across the duration of his senior career, as per WhoScored, though he is clearly adept at sweeping away danger having averaged 2.4 clearances per outing.
The respective full-backs are unfortunate to have lost their place in the Tyneside team for alternative reasons, and while both have had their promising moments in black and white, it now looks like Howe and co are set to continue Newcastle's ascent and forge a path right to the very top of the game, signing superlative new options to ensure that there is a continuation of the recent exploits.