It was summer 2022 and all the media outlets were certain that Newcastle United were set to sign one of France's hottest young prospects in Huge Ekitike before he backed out of the deal and went to Paris Saint-Germain.
The Toon Army was in uproar, the deal looked nailed on and done and then suddenly Ekitike's agent started flaking on meetings and playing games with the Newcastle representatives. It soon became clear why when PSG announced they'd signed Ekitike on loan with an obligation to buy.
Newcastle were gearing up to make Ekitike the next big thing, he was going to go straight into the first team and lead the line for Newcastle, but instead he opted to go to PSG where he'd have to fight to get into the team ahead of Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi.
Not only did he fail to break into the first team, PSG pretty quickly regretted the move as his attitude was, for want of a better word, honking. To paraphrase the great James Tolkan, his ego was writing cheques his body couldn't cash.
Things went so bad for him at PSG that he was constantly linked with Newcastle in every subsequent transfer window, but for whatever reason, it never even got close to becoming a reality.
The 21-year-old finally found an escape route from his Parisian nightmare and secured a loan move to Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt at the end of the January window.
Here we are just a week later and Ekitike has been kicked out of training for poor fitness and sent to train with an individual work group to get his fitness levels up.
Not since Neo came face to face with that Agent on that rooftop has anyone dodged a bullet so spectacularly as Newcastle did when this deal collapsed.
The lad might have all the talent in the world, but if your attitude stinks and you don't put the work in, you'll be consigned to the history books as a "what if?". It seems pretty obvious why Newcastle never actually went back in for him as Eddie Howe doesn't stand for players who don't give their all for the club.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
14 | 18 | 35 |
2 |
Chelsea
|
15 | 17 | 31 |
3 |
Arsenal
|
15 | 14 | 29 |
4 |
Manchester City
|
15 | 6 | 27 |
5 |
Nottingham Forest
|
15 | 1 | 25 |
6 |
Aston Villa
|
15 | 0 | 25 |
7 |
Brighton
|
15 | 3 | 24 |
8 |
Bournemouth
|
15 | 3 | 24 |
9 |
Brentford
|
15 | 3 | 23 |
10 |
Fulham
|
15 | 2 | 23 |
11 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
15 | 12 | 20 |
12 |
Newcastle United
|
15 | -2 | 20 |
13 |
Manchester United
|
15 | 1 | 19 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
14 | -9 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
14 | -7 | 14 |
16 |
Leicester
|
15 | -9 | 14 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
15 | -6 | 13 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
15 | -13 | 9 |
19 |
Wolves
|
14 | -14 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
15 | -20 | 5 |