The new revolution under Rafa seems to be gathering some pace with a clutch of new and exciting players joining this summer including Dwight Gayle, Matt Ritchie and Issac Hayden.
Whilst our Spanish boss seems to have his head screwed on in the transfer market, it’s important to remember (like we could forget) that the Magpies have made some absolute howlers where signing new players are concerned down the years.
Today we take a look at five of Newcastle’s worst Premier League signings from years gone by.
Club: Real Madrid
Fee: £17 million
In my slightly biased opinion, the Michael Owen we all knew and loved firmly lost his way around 2003/2004. Whilst we’ll all look back on the days where he used to score goals such as these for fun, his form or really, lack of it, was a major contributing factor as to why we went down in the 2008/2009 season.
After being brought to the club to a not-too-paltry £17 million (although his £100,000+ wages per week is a different story), the Liverpool lad managed a very paltry 26 goals in four years, averaging out at just 6.5 goals every year. In the season of doom where it really mattered, drawn-out periods on the treatment table really hampered Owen’s ability in front of goal after missing a host of important chances in the latter stages of the bitterly disappointing 08/09 campaign.
Whilst things could have been totally different had the English striker remained fit, Owen’s transfer came with a severe hazard warning that said ‘expect this lad to get a run of games together before inevitably suffering another innocuous injury’, it was the club’s stupid fault that these warning signs weren’t heeded and for that reason, Owen goes down as one of our worst Premier League signings ever.