Opinion: How does missing out on Tosin affect Newcastle United's transfer window?

The impact of missing out on transfers you were confident would be done...

Transfer windows are hard graft for recruitment teams in the Premier League. The sheer volume of competition for the same small pools of quality players (whose agents all want bidding wars) makes getting deals “done” hard and planning for downstream moves even harder.

So if you’re Newcastle United and you’re heading into the window looking to add around five good quality players – a goalkeeper, a right-footed centre-back, a hybrid left-back/centre-back, a right winger and a striker – to your squad, banking a couple of early free transfer signings or sales allows you to spend a bit more on each subsequent position.

It’s a bit like one of those shitty slide puzzles you buy to keep a 5-year-old quiet for a few minutes. You know the picture you want to achieve, but it’s only when you start making your moves that you can get the results you're after and sometimes you run out of time or resources to complete the puzzle satisfactorily.

So when you think you’ve got a free transfer sewn up - as was widely reported about Newcastle United and Tosin Adarabioyo - it doesn’t just mean you’ve missed out on a cheap deal but if you’ve already put in significant leg work to deals further along the chain of events you’re faced with some choices. Do you:

a.) Continue to pursue the expensive transfer targets you had planned at the remaining positions and hope that the market provides a cheap deal for a right centre-back you like closer to the deadline?

b.) Evenly reduce the amount you spend on each target to build your picture but perhaps have to choose players that are less likely to have an immediate impact or are of a lesser quality than your previous targets?

c.) Take a mix of the approaches above, powering on with key targets while finding compromises at positions where upgrades will have less of an impact on the overall quality of the team?

Each approach has its merits but, if we’re going by the transfer rumour mill it seems like Newcastle United are taking option C. Since losing the Tosin deal, links to more expensive Goalkeepers like Ramsdale and Mamardashvili have started to dry up and it seems more likely that James Trafford will join the club.

If that happens, I’ll discuss the relative merits of that move on its own terms on X as I did with Lloyd Kelly (click on the image below if you’ve not read that yet). But it did get me thinking about whether the club’s recruitment team will need to make any more compromises following Tosin’s snub?

Given the likelihood that we sell Wilson and Almiron this summer and that attacking positions tend to cost a little more, unless we make an unexpectedly big sale (please stay Bruno 🙏) it might be worth thinking about whether any loan-to-buy moves that would be attractive in the centre-back market. After all, in a football world dominated by the spectre of PSR, there’s only so much money to spread around.

Other thoughts…

Keiran Trippier

There is a growing amount of reporting surrounding the future of Keiran Trippier. The 33-year-old defender is currently away at Euro 2024, but following that game away to Everton and a subsequent injury, it feels like the soon-to-be 34-year-old right-back is a prime candidate for a final payday in the Saudi League. He’s a high-profile player who physically is starting to show signs of decline. With Tino Livramento already at SJP I can see the club banking the sale and looking for a squad man here. One to watch.

In terms of a replacement, I honestly think (once our Ashworth fight has been settled) that Newcastle should take a look at Wan-Bissaka. Able to cover both full-back spots, he’s an exceptional 1 v 1 defender who would raise the floor of the squad. No links yet, but he’s available for around £16-20m. A bargain for someone.

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