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Eddie Howe has softened his stadium stance. A man of tradition, VAR, PSR and many of modern football’s conventions have seldom appealed to him.

St James’ Park and everything that comes with the iconic 52,000 venue, from the 143-year history, its city-centre location and dominating skyline presence, provides the opposite. As clubs across the country tear down their institutions for corporate bowls, the Tyneside mecca stands proudly as a bastion of English football history.

“My natural instinct was always to stay at St James’ Park,” Howe began, before dangling the carrot of contradiction. “It’s an incredible place to play football. It’s our home, so to think about moving somewhere else feels a little bit of a betrayal to somewhere that has served us so well. 

“But we are well aware that, as a football club, we need to increase our revenue. People with more brain cells will make the decision for the benefit of the long-term future of the football club and that’s always the most important thing. So I could be swayed, but my natural instinct is to want to stay.

"It's a massive decision. It's a decision where you won't be able to please everybody. There will be different opinions. It's truly only the people assessing the pros and cons that can really make the decision.

"It's very easy to give an opinion from the outside. You've got a huge cost, the extra revenue you could get, so it's a huge decision to make."

So despite acknowledging the “betrayal” of history, Howe accepted the potential logistical nightmare that St James’ Park poses. If those comments were altered from his stance a year ago, when the 46-year-old urged the Toon hierarchy to stay put, they were a volte-face on what he said previously… but not how you think.

"For me, that's the only way we can go now," Howe, then Bournemouth manager, told BBC Radio Solent. "We must have a tangible, long-term thing to look back at and go 'that was what the Premier League did for us'.

"The training ground, the new stadium - that's where this club has to go for the long-term benefits, otherwise we will never see the benefits of the Premier League era."

Strip his name from those quotes and they could be misconstrued as a “rebuild St James’ Park” advocate in 2024. While Howe dragged Bournemouth and Newcastle from the abyss and turned them into attractive Premier League outfits, the similarities end there.

Both grounds are over a century old, but the Magpies host treble the supporters. No disrespect to Bournemouth, but the seaside town is neither an epicentre of football enthusiasm. Newcastle upon Tyne is exactly that.

However, what Howe’s 2018 standpoint poetically illustrates is Newcastle’s current dilemma. Thursday’s club statement promised a once-in-a-generation investment that must satisfy “revenue” and “competitiveness” needs.

Can rebuilding St James’ Park do that? Time will tell. But PIF have been given plenty of food for thought if their minds are not already made up.