It's the middle of January and this is the closest Newcastle have come to a transfer story

Transfer insider Fabrizio Romano is usually the one account to watch on social media during these exciting times.

Once the transfer window opens the Italian reporter always seems to be the first to know the big movers and shakers, so Newcastle United fans will spend a lot of time refreshing their X feed to see if Romano has any NUFC-related news for us in terms of transfers.

Except, this January it has not been like that. Apart from the ongoing Kalvin Phillips saga and the return and subsequent booting out of Isaac Hayden, there's not a lot going on at the Toon.

Romano has been reduced to posting non-news

There's not a lot going on anywhere in fairness as FFP has completely ruined the game, but at Newcastle, you could hear a pin drop.

Except today, Fabrizio Romano had something to say about Newcastle. Sort of. Let's be honest, he could not have posted the above tweet at all and we'd all be no better nor worse off.

The fact that the most famous transfer journalist going has had to resort to telling us Bruno has gone to France for a bit but it has nothing to do with Paris Saint-Germain should tell you exactly how uneventful this transfer window has been.

Here I go again...

I'm sure there have been a few incomings and outgoings in the Premier League but off the top of my head, I can only think of Tottenham signing Radu Dragusin. They're the only club that seems able to spend anyway because they have that Harry Kane money.

Manchester United are in a state of flux thanks to the incoming Jim Ratcliffe, Man City and Liverpool don't tend to do January business anyway and the rest of the league can't afford to spend anything because the Profit and Sustainability rules have completely buckled them. Especially in the case of Nottingham Forest and Everton who are awaiting their fate today after being adjudged to have breached the rules.

This should be one of a football writer's favourite months, commenting on all the speculation and yet all I've done is rant about how FFP has ruined the game. It's got so bad I even found myself agreeing with Richard Keys and Andy Gray this morning. Abhorrent behaviour. I give myself a yellow card!