Newcastle United fans aren't exactly pleased with how the club's summer transfer window panned out this year and it has raised questions about the ownership and the club's ambitions.
While we're not quite at complete meltdown status yet, there are questions being asked of the hierarchy, and after the summer the club has had, it's not hard to see why.
Some people may label it as entitlement that there's disharmony amongst the fanbase after the club failed to land a marquee signing this summer, and while we understand that point of view, we were told that there would be money to spend, and we were told for a month that England defender Marc Guehi was coming to the club.
Expectations were raised, and raised by those inside the club, mind, which makes the reality of what happened harder to take.
Newcastle weren't the only Premier League side to have a less-than-stellar window, however, and at least we did strengthen by making the Lewis Hall move permanent, bringing in Lloyd Kelly who had a fantastic game against Tottenham on Sunday. We brought a backup for Alexander Isak and Callum Wilson. We will just ignore the pointless goalkeeper additions.
Outgoings weren't as good as we were expecting, however. We thought we'd see the back of Miguel Almiron and possibly Callum Wilson, but the latter got injured and the former chained himself to the St James' Park gates refusing to leave.
As bad as the summer was, surely The Athletic would find another club that had a worse window than us, right?
Nope. Newcastle were ranked rock bottom of their transfer window league below Leicester City. The Athletic christened our transfer window as an 'abomination'.
"Alan Shearer described Newcastle’s summer business as “embarrassing”, while head coach Eddie Howe said he couldn’t argue against the accusation his squad is weaker now than a year ago.
"The basic requirement of any summer window is to improve your team or your squad. Newcastle did neither of those things.
"They signed Lewis Hall, who was already with them on loan, a young backup striker in William Osula who failed to score in 21 Premier League appearances for Sheffield United last season, plus a couple of reserve goalkeepers.
"They also sold Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh for PSR reasons, duly strengthening two Premier League rivals in Nottingham Forest and Brighton.
"As bad as it gets. Fortunately, they still have a decent first XI.
"Describe it in one word: Abomination"
However, their blurb totally neglected to mention Lloyd Kelly, who actually looks to have been a solid signing, so we're bumping us up to 19th with Kelly included as is our right as biased writers.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
12 | 16 | 31 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
12 | 5 | 23 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
5 |
Brighton
|
12 | 5 | 22 |
6 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
12 | 14 | 19 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
12 | 2 | 19 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
12 | 0 | 19 |
9 |
Fulham
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
11 |
Brentford
|
12 | 0 | 17 |
12 |
Manchester United
|
12 | 0 | 16 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
12 | -1 | 15 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
12 | -4 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
12 | -7 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
12 | -8 | 10 |
17 |
Wolves
|
12 | -8 | 9 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
12 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Crystal Palace
|
12 | -7 | 8 |
20 |
Southampton
|
12 | -15 | 4 |