Paul Mitchell recently joined Newcastle United as sporting director taking over the position left vacant by Dan Ashworth.

While Mitchell may take the same job title as Ashworth held, but the role is expected to be very different with Ashworth's duties having now been split into several roles.

Mitchell will be mostly focused on transfer business which is where his strengths lie having held similar positions at Southampton, Tottenham, RB Leipzig and most recently, Monaco.

And it's from Monaco that Newcastle's latest staff member is set to arrive.

Monaco's former performance director James Bunce looks set to be reunited with Paul Mitchell at Newcastle according to Craig Hope.

Bunce will take up the role of director of performance, what's that? I hear you cry. Well, we've looked it up so you don't have to. This is how the role is described on sports intelligence website iterpro.com:

"The performance director is the person inside a club or a federation in charge of overseeing the different performance departments of the club such as sports science, medical, nutrition, S&C or analytics, in order to ensure the players' optimal fitness and performance on the game day, following the coaching philosophy and requirement of the Head Coach.

"The role of the performance director consists to lead and coordinate the various departments of the organisation like analytics, medicine and sports science, which complements the players' condition and wellness according to the needs of the current squad and coaches.

"He is also in charge of creating a continuity among the members of the staff that changes throughout the year, by forming a structured working philosophy, identity and culture at the club for the staff to follow."

Bunce will be in charge of the medical staff Essentially, we now have a name we can use to blame when all of our players break down with injuries like they did last season.

Hopefully, as part of his new role, Bunce will be able to start writing the wrongs of last season after he's got up to speed with the investigation that the club launched into last season's wild injury list.

It's another positive move by the club ahead of such a huge season.