Newcastle United miss out on £26m defender after player agrees to join Premier League rival

Day 10 of the January transfer window and Newcastle United have yet to make a signing.

First of all, if you read that in the Geordie Big Brother announcer's voice, well done.

More importantly, there hasn't been a transfer window in recent memory where the need to act swiftly was so widely felt, and yet Eddie Howe and his staff seem to be in no hurry at all to do anything to repair the patchwork squad we've had to deal with this season. We just need a couple more patches, lads. Howay.

Radu Dragusin is Premier League-bound

There was a player that Newcastle had their eye on, a bloody good player who was available for a reasonable fee - Radu Dragusin, the 21-year-old Romanian defender from Genoa.

Unfortunately for Newcastle, Dragusin has opted to join Tottenham Hotspur which has looked to have been on the cards for a few days despite a late swoop from Bayern Munich.

Fabrizio Romano confirmed via X that the player has opted for Spurs and Djed Spence has gone the other way on loan.

"Radu Dragusin to Tottenham, here we go! Agreement reached on package in excess of €30m after new bid overnight.

"Spence joins Genoa on loan.

"Dragusin wanted Spurs and confirmed their agreement on personal terms despite Bayern bid."

Newcastle could wait until summer to do their transfer business

We obviously don't know how concrete Newcastle's interest was, so it's tough to say really whether we were beaten to the punch or if we even tried at all, especially with the rumours of a bid for Andreas Christensen hotting up again.

There is certainly a need for a new, young centre-back to come in at Newcastle, but whether the club sees that as a January problem remains to be seen, especially in light of FFP restriction.

Newcastle will probably do the bare minimum in this window and will look to make some big signings in the summer when the FFP gap widens thanks to bigger commercial deals and likely some player sales.