Claire Ditchburn (Newcastle United FC)

Newcastle United have announced that assistant manager Claire Ditchburn will take charge of the team on an interim basis.

Ditchburn has previously been head coach at Durham, and also held coaching roles at Everton and Manchester City.

She will be assisted by Peter Ramage, a former Newcastle player, and the club’s current assistant loan player manager.

Goalkeeper coach Stephen Brass and first team coach Luke Thomas-Arayo will continue in their respective roles.

It follows the departure of long-serving manager Becky Langley, which was announced on Monday evening along with the confirmation that an interim coaching structure would be put in place while the recruitment process for a permanent replacement was ongoing.

Langley was appointed in 2019, and led the team to back-to-back promotions from the fourth tier to WSL2, where they finished in fifth place last season. She oversaw the move to full-time professional status while the club was still in the third tier.

She was initially head of women’s football at Northumbria University, taking on the Newcastle team management as part of a partnership between the club’s foundation and the university.

Prior to that, she had coached at Nottingham Forest’s academy while leading the...