Disastrous summer a threat to Newcastle's wider project

The club have become a laughing stock over their comically haphazard transfer business of late, writes Miguel Delaney

- Miguel Delaney

It was as early as the first days of June that Eddie Howe and his staff feared this summer was going to be “a big problem” for Newcastle United.

The reason then was not yet failed purchases, the departure of sporting director Paul Mitchell or even Alexander Isak. Or at least, just Isak. Newcastle had already known about the Swede's ambitions to leave for months. Now, the same fears were growing about Tino Livramento and Anthony Gordon, with the added concern that any unrest could lead to more agitation in the dressing room. The mood was so foreboding that Howe's staff even asked others in football about potential solutions.

It was a huge shift from the satisfaction felt mere weeks before, and the end of a season that was the club's best in decades. The Carabao Cup closed that long wait for a trophy, bringing a sense of release around the club. The final-day qualification for a second Champions League campaign in three seasons then seemed to take that further; to embolden everyone, and afford the club the financial assurance to really press on. There was no longer a PSR need to sell stars like Isak.

There were instead a host of other latent problems. Almost everything has gone wrong, from start to finish and top to bottom, and especially in transfer negotiations.

The noise around Newcastle on social media no longer sees human rights groups criticising the Saudi state owners to the same prominence. It is instead jokes, and memes, about how comically haphazard this summer has been. Newcastle can't seem to buy what they need as stars want to leave. Worse, transfer pursuits seem to end in absurd ways, a bad joke, with the same punchline.