WHEN Newcastle United’s Saudi-backed ownership group completed their buyout of Mike Ashley a little over a year ago, Amanda Staveley immediately set her sights on emulating a specific club. “Of course, we have the same ambitions as Manchester City,” she bullishly insisted. “We want to win trophies, but that will take time.”

Since then, the narrative has taken hold. Newcastle United, with their eye-watering Middle-Eastern wealth, should be aiming to emulate Manchester City, the original English sleeping giant that was transformed by an influx of oil money from the Gulf. Okay, it won’t happen overnight. But given time, and a degree of luck along the way, there should be no reason why Newcastle’s owners should not lift the Manchester City template and transplant it onto Tyneside. What has worked so well at the Etihad should also be capable of succeeding at St James’ Park.

In many respects, it is a laudable ambition. Who wouldn’t want to win the Premier League title, playing a brand of football that is admired all over the world? Who wouldn’t want to sign the world’s best centre-forward, adding him to a team that was already overflowing with stars? Who wouldn’t like to watch their football at a gleaming stadium like the Etihad, with its state-of-the-art facilities and purpose-built academy sitting right next door?

Well, interestingly, the answer to those questions appears to be a huge chunk of the fanbase that used to watch Manchester City at the old Maine Road, but who are now either unable or unwilling to pack out the Etihad. And therein lies one of the key dilemmas Newcastle’s power-brokers will face as they attempt to turn their own club into a global superpower. Is the journey worth taking if a large section of the existing supporter base is cast aside along the way?

Go to the Etihad to watch a game, and while the product on the pitch might be sensational, it is invariably a soulless experience. The atmosphere, even for the biggest games such as this month’s derby with Manchester United, tends to be stilted and subdued, with even Pep Guardiola having been forced to call for an improvement in support levels in the not-too-distant past. Some diehards remain, but the matchday crowd tends to be swelled by sightseers and tourists, ticking the club off on their list of must-sees.

Champions League matches, supposedly the crème-de-la-crème, can be hard to sell out, which is probably not a surprise given that ticket prices have risen markedly, making the Etihad one of the most expensive grounds to attend in the country outside London. While Newcastle’s forthcoming home games against Everton and Aston Villa have already sold out, go on to Manchester City’s website, and you can choose pretty much any seat you want for next month’s Champions League game with Sevilla.

It wasn’t always like that. Anyone who had the fortune or misfortune to be a visiting fan at Maine Road will remember that heading through Moss Side to get into the stadium was like walking through a bear pit. Then, once you were in, you had the raucous, heaving mass of the Kippax confronting you. City, lest we forget, were attracting crowds of more than 30,000 when they were floundering in the third tier. They can barely get that now for a Champions League semi-final.

The club has been gentrified, and while that has undoubtedly brought huge benefits, it has also resulted in it losing something special and fundamental along the way.

That was on my mind earlier this week when, along with other regional and national journalists, I was able to sit with Newcastle’s chief executive, Darren Eales, and sporting director, Dan Ashworth, to discuss the club’s future plans.

Unsurprisingly, there are some huge ambitions. Winning trophies, carving out a place in the top six, transforming commercial incomes, radically overhauling the physical infrastructure at both St James’ Park and the training ground.

Crucially, though, there also appeared to be an acknowledgement that Newcastle United already has something special, and that it would be a terrible move to lose it.

“Everything we do has to be through the lens of the supporters,” said Eales. “What does that mean? Well, a huge part of what makes Newcastle United the club that it is, is the passion of the supporters and the atmosphere that’s generated inside St James’ Park. That is clearly a huge part of Newcastle United’s identity, and something we have to be mindful of when we’re making decisions.

“Now, we also have to get to a level where we want to be able to grow and support the team on the pitch as much as we possibly can, so we have to be smart in how we’re bringing in commercial revenues. But the reality is, that doesn’t just mean we ratchet up the prices right around the ground to price people out because that would be crazy.

“We don’t want to be pricing out huge swathes of our fanbase. There may be some opportunities where we talk to the supporters and say, ‘Look, we want to do this – are you guys okay with it because it’s going to help us bring in extra revenue?’

“We need to compete, but that doesn’t mean we have to double the season-ticket prices or price people out of the ground. We need a dialogue and collaboration, but I hope the supporters know there is a genuine understanding throughout the ownership group of what makes Newcastle special, and that’s the supporters, the atmosphere and that engagement with the club.”

The proof will be in the pudding, but if nothing else those words should at least provide a degree of assurance. Newcastle’s new owners might want success, but in some crucial and fundamental ways, they have at least acknowledged that it would be a huge negative if their club became the next Manchester City.