That’s it folks, the January transfer window is shut – and it’s been a busy day on Tyneside.
TWO have signed – which features a club record deal for Miguel Almiron – and 5 have left the club on loan – however there’s been a few proposed incomings and outgoings that haven’t materialised.
Here’s a round up of it all:
Incomings..
Miguel Almiron – Signed for a CLUB RECORD fee in the region of £21m, penning a 5 and a half year deal from Atlanta Utd. The 24-year-old is an exciting number 10 and had been described as Rafa’s ‘top target’ for the entire month. Great news!
Antonio Barreca – Arrives on loan from Monaco with an option to buy for £9m in the summer. The Italian is a 23-year-old attacking left-back who could operate as a wing-back if and when Rafa plays 5 in defence.
Outgoings..
Jacob Murphy – Has completed a loan move to West Brom until the end of the season. No option to buy, however the Baggies are paying his wages in full. A good move for him I feel, especially when he looked woefully low on confidence at NUFC.
Rolando Aarons & Achraf Lazaar – BOTH have signed on loan with Championship side Sheffield Wednesday in the final few moments of deadline day. Surprised? Yep, me too!
Callum Roberts – Has joined League Two side Colchester Utd on loan until the end of the season. A good chance for the 21-year-old local lad to get game time at senior level after bagging an outstanding 13 goals and 8 assists this season – including one with the first team in our FA Cup win at Blackburn.
Josef Yarney – The big centre-back has joined National League side Chesterfield on loan until the end of the season. He featured over pre-season and spent the first half of the campaign on loan with League Two side Morecambe.
These deals have gone through earlier in the window, but it’s also worth noting that U-23 duo Jamie Sterry and Elias Sorensen have joined Crewe and Blackpool respectively on loan until the end of the season.
Regarding the deals that we ‘missed out’ on, it was confirmed that moves for Anthony Limbombe (Nantes winger) and Andreas Samaris (Benfica midfielder) were explored, however both failed to materialise.
We also explored the possibility of extending Salomon Rondon’s loan move BEYOND this season, however that appeared to be a non starter with West Brom – who had asked us to pay £15m to sign the Venezuelan permanently.
French reports also claimed late on that we had a bid rejected for Lille midfielder Boubakary Soumare.
With this in mind and us failing to land a striker or midfielder, moves away for the likes of Joselu and Isaac Hayden were not sanctioned – with this being a real blow for the latter, who had planned to move closer to home for personal reasons.
Happy?
And repeat. This is what you get when you have the lowest paid MD in PL football in charge of deals and an approach to transfers which follows the Lastminute dot com model.
Broke our transfer record – after 14 years, whoopee! – and added yet another loan player. Truly outstanding.
sickandtired(Quote)
Happy with Almiron but this is nowhere near enough.
Dubai Toon(Quote)