Newcastle United’s recent history could have been rewritten in a much different way had things gone in another direction back in 2019.

At the time of Rafa Benitez’s departure from Tyneside, Mike Ashley was left searching for a replacement before Steve Bruce eventually took charge. Now, according to The Telegraph’s Sam Dean, we know that Newcastle made a serious attempt to appoint current Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta that summer, months before the Spaniard accepted the job at the Emirates Stadium, with the reigning Premier League champion being this close to taking over the role at St. James’ Park.

“Months before Mikel Arteta was appointed by Arsenal, he came extremely close to accepting a role at another Premier League club,” Dean wrote. “It was not known by the wider world, but Newcastle United pushed hard to recruit the Spaniard in the summer of 2019.”

Ashley was prepared to offer Arteta an unusually long contract for a first-time head coach, despite his only senior coaching experience at that point coming as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City.

“Arteta was tempted,” Dean reported. “Newcastle are one of the great clubs in English football, with hugely passionate fans, and in many ways they represented the perfect starting point for a coach of Arteta’s age and experience. The previous season, Newcastle had finished 13th in the Premier League table, 11 points clear of the bottom three. On paper at least, there was room for improvement, without a need to be overly fearful of falling into a relegation battle.“

However, Arteta had never previously managed a club and did not have an established coaching team ready to follow him. The staff members he wanted were reportedly unable to join him at the time, ultimately contributing to his decision to reject Newcastle.

The Magpies instead turned to Bruce and went on to finish 13th in the Premier League that season, a couple of years before undergoing the biggest shift in the club’s history when the arrival of PIF happened in late 2021.

Arteta, meanwhile, stayed at Man City for a bit and joined Arsenal later in 2019, having since developed into one of the Premier League’s most prominent managers and lifting the Gunners to the biggest of heights, making Newcastle’s failed approach another intriguing sliding-doors moment from the Ashley era.

How different could Newcastle’s trajectory have been if Arteta had accepted the job in 2019? Share your thoughts in the comments below!