ESPN share what they believe to be Newcastle United's biggest transfer mistake in recent memory

Newcastle United have had some epic blunders in the transfer market; there's no doubt about that. We have one in our squad right now, refusing to leave, Odysseaas Vlachodimos.

Every club has made mistakes in the transfer market, though, which is why ESPN has decided to take a look at every Premier League club's biggest transfer errors of recent times and rank them.

The acquisitions of Kai Havertz and Darwin Nunez are deemed to be Arsenal and Liverpool's biggest mistakes, respectively, for example.

Whereas Bournemouth's was to get rid of Eddie Howe and replacing him with Jason Tindall - hardly a transfer mistake, just an epic blunder overall, but one that we benefitted from so, thanks.

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Newcastle United's entry was a double whammy

For Newcastle United's entry, which came in at a respectable 15 on the list, ESPN went with a double whammy, although we have to question their subtitle here.

"BIGGEST MISTAKE: Giving a direct rival their best midfielder and best striker
"You can't really blame Newcastle for not seeing Forest's rise coming, but you also can't really say anything other than: Newcastle directly fueled Nottingham Forest's rise!

"Chris Wood joined last summer on a permanent deal from Newcastle, and he's currently fourth in the league in goals scored. Elliott Anderson, meanwhile, joined this past summer, and he's leading Forest with 66 line-breaking passes completed, per data from PFF FC. The main way that Forest move the ball up the field is through Anderson; the main way they convert that movement into goals is through Wood.

"Oh yeah: as of this writing, Forest are three points ahead of Newcastle in the Premier League table."

We knew it would be Chris Wood before we read the article

We were expecting it to be Chris Wood before we read the article and weren't disappointed. He has been phenomenal for Nottingham Forest, but the thing is, he didn't suit Eddie Howe's style of play. He'd never have hit these numbers if he'd hung around.

Losing Elliot Anderson definitely still stings as we all know what a talent he is, but as for being out 'best midfielder'? That's a bit of a stretch given our current trio of Bruno Guimaraes, Sandro Tonali and Joelinton, which, again, informs the decision of why he was allowed to leave to appease the Gods of PSR.

If you're wondering what transfer mistake ESPN ranked as the worst, it was Manchester United's signing of Antony. We can't argue with that. What a woeful player.