What are the key mistakes of the last 12 months that resulted in Newcastle's relegation?

A combination of bad decision-making and entrenched mismanagement has resulted in Newcastle being relegated with a game to spare, and left the club contemplating a potential financial meltdown as they begin to prepare for a season in the Championship.

This wasn’t supposed to happen when a sold-out St James’ Park cheered the Magpies to an emotional win over West Ham last May, but since then, things have careered from bad to worse, and then on to catastrophic.

So with one more game of a calamitous campaign to go, what were the key errors in the last 12 months that have culminated in relegation?

Appointing Steve McClaren

As he pondered the identity of John Carver’s successor, Lee Charnley boasted that Newcastle had received “about 80 applications” for the role. So how on earth did they decide Steve McClaren was the best candidate?

McClaren might have established a reputation as a respected coach, but his time with England had exposed a major flaw when it came to exerting authority over big-name players and his previous spells with Derby and Nottingham Forest had seen him fail to get established clubs out of the Championship despite considerable investment.

Newcastle needed a manager, or head coach, willing to push the boundaries and challenge those working above him. Instead, with Mike Ashley resistant to any kind of pressure from an employee he regarded as no more significant than any other, they chose the safest option.

Making the wrong summer signings

One of the key lessons from last season’s dramatic slide under first Alan Pardew and then John Carver was that Newcastle lacked strong personalities and leaders in the dressing room.

Had they signed some proven players with extensive Premier League experience last summer, they might not be in the mess they currently inhabit. Instead, they ploughed down the same route of purchasing players under the age of 26 from abroad, with predictably disastrous consequences.

Georginio Wijnaldum went missing as soon as the going got tough, Aleksandar Mitrovic was always going to be too callow to lead the line on his own, and the less said about the decision to spend £13m on Florian Thauvin, the better. You live or die by your recruitment, and Newcastle’s has been disastrous for a while now.

Retaining Fabricio Coloccini as captain

In fairness to McClaren, one of the things he got right was quickly identifying that Coloccini was past his best and a potentially destabilising force in the dressing room. At the start of August, he recommended the Argentinian be sold and replaced.

With interest from Crystal Palace mounting, Newcastle’s recruitment team assessed potential defensive acquisitions, but quickly decided that retaining Coloccini was the easiest and cheapest option. They offered him a new two-year deal, and even recommended that he remained as captain.

It was a dreadful misjudgement. Coloccini was repeatedly found wanting in the first half of the season, and has been nowhere to be seen since the middle of February. It is hard to imagine a worse leader.

Pre-season tour of the United States

Having appointed McClaren and assembled a new-look squad, it was imperative Newcastle’s boardroom team gave their new coach as much time as possible to work with his new players.

Ideally, he would have been closeted with them at Newcastle’s training complex or heading to a brief training break in Europe. Instead, he was forced to embark on a gruelling 13,000-mile tour of the United States that offered nothing in the way of useful match practice.

“Is it ideal? No. But this is what we have inherited,” said McClaren. Little wonder the chaotic preparations preceded a run of eight winless games at the start of the season.

Failure to build on December’s good run

There haven’t been too many high points this season, but December’s back-to-back wins over Liverpool and Tottenham were a rare moment when Newcastle were able to look upwards instead of down.

The 2-1 win at White Hart Lane lifted the Magpies into 15th position – their highest placing other than the opening weekend of the season – and established a foundation from which it was possible for them to kick on.

Instead, they drew their following game with Aston Villa and embarked on a disastrous festive spell that saw them lose to Everton, West Brom and Arsenal. That dropped them back into the bottom three and reinforced the impression of a side in deep trouble.

Signing the wrong players in January

Come the opening of January transfer window, it was obvious Newcastle were in deep trouble. Lee Charnley was given the green light to spend to rectify the problem, and the Magpies were among the top three spenders in Europe at the turn of the year.

Unfortunately, they signed the wrong players once again. Desperately needing a striker and a left-back, they spent almost £30m on Andros Townsend, Jonjo Shelvey and Henri Saivet, three players who play in midfield.

Seydou Doumbia was a dreadfully inadequate attacking acquisition – the loan striker has not started a single game – and the failure to sign a full-back meant Newcastle were scrambling around with Vurnon Anita and Moussa Sissoko on the left of the back four when Paul Dummett got injured.

Keeping Steve McClaren too long

By the start of February, it had become clear that McClaren’s position was untenable, and the former England boss should have been dismissed in the wake of an embarrassing 5-1 capitulation at Chelsea.

A combination of their exit from the FA Cup and Manchester City’s appearance in the Capital One Cup final meant Newcastle did not have a game for 18 days – an ideal opportunity to change boss.

Instead, McClaren took his squad on a training break to Marbella and returned to oversee defeats to Stoke and Bournemouth. By the time Rafael Benitez arrived to replace him, it was already much too late.

Rafael Benitez’s team and tactics at Aston Villa

It is hard to be too critical of Benitez given that he has only had nine games in which to engineer an improvement, but having guided his side out of the bottom three thanks to a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, the former Liverpool and Chelsea boss badly misjudged things at Villa Park last weekend.

Newcastle had to win to have any realistic chance of surviving, and they could hardly have wished for better opposition given that Villa were on an 11-match losing streak.

But instead of being positive from the off, Benitez fielded two holding midfielders and opted to keep things tight before the break. Newcastle couldn’t wake from their stupor after the interval, and their final chance of survival disappeared.