Now that the summer transfer window has shut, Newcastle United fans will feel both very satisfied with our activity, as well as relieved that the window is indeed closed for another few months.
For as good as the latter few weeks of the window were, it could not have got off to a worse start for us, and it was shaping up to be an all time bad window.
Target after target was snapped up by the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City, and we were often left wondering just what more could we besides offering exciting attacking football and Champions League nights.
And now one of these targets has revealed for the first time why I chose not to make the move to the North East during the summer, and it could be a big obstacle we have to overcome if we want to secure future signings.
Joao Pedro has enjoyed a strong start to his Chelsea career, winning the Club World Cup and scoring some big goals as the Blues remain unbeaten in the Premier League.
And there was a point this summer where we eyed up the Brazilian to be a fantastic versatile option in attack for us, to which we were prepared to pay big money for the want-away Brazilian.
But instead he opted for Stamford Bridge over St James’ Park, confirming in a new interview what many of us expected as to why he chose to move to Chelsea over ourselves and other clubs.
Having started his stint in England at Watford, Pedro clearly became quite comfortable living in London, telling the Evening Standard this was a key factor behind his decision to join Chelsea over Newcastle:
“When I was in Brighton, I was missing London a little bit.”
“I had a chance to move to another club (Newcastle( this summer but I chose Chelsea because it’s in London, it’s a great club and I knew in my head it was the right move.”
It’s perhaps a similar situation to what we saw a couple of seasons ago, where we found ourselves battling with Spurs to sign the recently-relegated James Maddison.
Despite having just qualified for the Champions League, whilst Spurs missing out in Europe entirely, the English midfielder opted for the city life at the North London club.
It’s a harsh reality check for us that players would rather join a team on par with or below us in the table to simply live in a more favourable location like London and Manchester.
Even with the likes of Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali making drastic moves from Lyon and Milan and becoming enamoured with the North East, it’s clearly not every player’s cup of tea.
So how does the club possibly combat this? Perhaps the only solution is to continue strengthening its hand elsewhere. Champions League football is still the ultimate goal for a player: just look at Yoane Wissa and how desperate he was to join us to achieve that. The more regularly we can qualify for the UCL, the more a player may be willing to ‘overlook’ living in the North East.