… and St James’ Park was very quiet indeed.
It is the day before Transfer Deadline Day, or Football Christmas Eve as I like to call it, and things on Tyneside have been pretty quiet all things considered.
Newcastle still have some moves to make in the market, but it doesn’t look like they’re in any mad rush to do so. We have players on the books who could and likely should be moved on and we also know we’re lacking decent backup in key areas.
So, are Newcastle simply operating in the shadows, as we know they like to do, or is Dan Ashworth happy with the business done in this window and waiting until January to make any further moves?
The £63m transfer of Alexander Isak caught everybody off guard. It’s also a bigger fee than the quoted budget for the whole window as the club fed journalists a line that there’d only be £60m to spend this summer. A move that was likely designed to stop outrageous headlines like “Neymar To Newcastle“. Too bad that didn’t work.
I feel things are being worked on in the background that are deliberately being hush-hush for now so that the players and fans can concentrate on tonight’s game. It’s going to be a difficult enough fixture without the distractions of potential new players turning up.
I am sure tomorrow will be a much more exciting day for Newcastle fans who I have no doubt will have one eye on Sky Sports News as they go about their daily business.