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“You fear for them, you really do.” It is a familiar cliché pundits roll out to show concern about at least one club at the start of every Premier League season, often before a ball has even properly been kicked.

This year, my beloved Newcastle United appear to be right at the top of the list of teams drawing anxious looks, after a summer marked by several high-profile departures and far less high-profile arrivals, leaving behind a squad packed with uncertainty and inexperience.

To add to that, head coach and unquestioned club legend Eddie Howe stepped away with only three weeks remaining before the Premier League resumes and, at the time of writing, his replacement has still not been officially confirmed.

With all that disorder, it is easy to understand why pundits, supporters and neutral observers are viewing Newcastle as though they are a massive bin fire and nobody is even bothering to throw a glass of water on it. Even so, I am far more excited about the coming season than most people seem to be.

First of all, I am delighted to see Newcastle doing what they ought to have been doing from the outset: identifying young, exciting players with potential and signing them with development and future profit in mind. That approach worked brilliantly with Alexander Isak, Sandro Tonali and now Bruno Guimaraes, and it should never have been abandoned.

Instead, we are now having to deal with the consequences of last summer’s severe overspending, which has left us tied to players such as Anthony Elanga and Yoane Wissa, who are unlikely to be moved on any time soon or make the club any profit at all. All we can do is hope they come good, but there is very little evidence to suggest that will happen this season. Prove me wrong, lads. Please?

Even so, Newcastle are now looking at a refreshed squad full of youth and energy and, while it is certainly a gamble, a few more signings are still needed between now and the start of the season. I am genuinely excited to watch these players develop, create memorable moments in black and white and, eventually, feel disappointed when they leave in big-money transfers to clubs that are simply in a better position to pay them what they should be earning.

Yes, losing the likes of Isak, Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon and Tonali has hurt, but only because those players were success stories produced by a transfer policy that served us extremely well before it was carelessly discarded. I would much rather be devastated in future to lose Bazoumana Toure and Aladji Bamba to bigger clubs than spend my time hoping to see the back of them because their transfers have not worked out. This is how the club should have been conducting business all along, and I am glad to see that approach returning.

One thing I am far less eager to see back at Newcastle any time soon is the absurd talk of competing for titles or challenging among the top clubs in the world by 2030. To be fair, those ideas were pushed into the public conversation by people inside the club, first Amanda Staveley and then chief executive David Hopkinson, creating a completely false sense of identity that Newcastle supporters were left carrying. Not many of us truly believed those claims and, in the long term, they have made the club look foolish rather than giving the impression of genuine, serious contenders.

By laying these new foundations, Newcastle once again have a realistic project to get behind rather than one that feels as though it is trying to achieve more than it is ever capable of and is therefore, obviously, destined to fail. Last season was disheartening for exactly those reasons, especially during the summer, as the Magpies attempted to attract huge, expensive and unrealistic targets such as Hugo Ekitike and Benjamin Sesko while also trying to keep the PSR spreadsheets balanced.

This year will not be defined by an inability to spend heavily on players who probably do not want to come to Newcastle anyway. Instead, it will be defined by smart recruitment and forward planning, with players desperate to impress and make a name for themselves at St James’ Park rather than footballers who would already be looking towards their next major move.

The recruitment has not only been exciting on the pitch either, with new boss Matthias Jaissle potentially the most intriguing arrival of the summer, if the club ever formally announces it. Howe’s project had gone stale and, much as I admire him for everything he achieved at Newcastle, he looked drained and short of energy, even after his summer break. By the closing stages of last season, it was obvious that change was required and, although it came later than I would have liked, I am pleased he was eventually able to accept that stepping down was in everyone’s best interests.

Now, rather than dreading another unimaginative and predictable 90 minutes of Howe-ball at the beginning of the season, with only like-for-like substitutions arriving after the 80th minute, I cannot wait to see how Jaissle sets the team up, adjusts the squad, introduces his own ideas and philosophies — which those who know describe as attack-minded and aggressive — and gradually gets the side functioning together over time.

Of course, there is every possibility that he may not manage to do that, or that it may take some time, but I am far more optimistic about his chances than I ever was about Howe rediscovering the energy and passion that carried us to our first trophy in decades, which had completely drained away from both him and the squad over the last 12 months.

That is not to say it has been a perfect summer. I do understand those who are worried about Newcastle’s future, but I cannot help also feeling fascinated and encouraged by the way the club has responded to a year in which the consequences of its mistakes and poor decisions made life extremely difficult for both the club and its supporters.

There is still plenty of work to do. In fact, a great deal of it. But free from expectation and no longer weighed down by ridiculous delusions of grandeur, I genuinely believe this could be the beginning of a superb new era for Newcastle United, rather than merely the end of the most successful one in living memory.