Newcastle United are enjoying their new-found status as the richest club in the world.
The Magpies have been spending big over the past 12 months, and they’ve been picking up some truly top-class talents in the transfer window.
Their strategy isn’t too dissimilar to the strategy we saw Manchester City employ in the late 2000s, signing some superstar names (Carlos Tevez and Robinho for City, Alexander Isak and Sven Botman for Newcastle), while also adding Premier League experience to the spine of the side – Nick Pope being the modern-day Shay Given, while Kieran Trippier and Dan Burn have been around the block in the same way Gareth Barry and James Milner had.
Unfortunately for Newcastle and City, there’s always that story of the one that got away. For City, the most famous example was their touted £100m move for Kaka in 2009 that never came off, and sadly for Newcastle, their failed move for Lucas Paqueta this summer may haunt them for years to come.
Now, we’re not going to say that Paqueta is as good as Kaka. After all, the AC Milan legend was a Ballon d’Or winner, but Newcastle may well regret missing out on him in the same way City did with Kaka.
Paqueta would’ve been perfect for this Newcastle team. The creativity and fight he brings in the midfield is exactly what the Magpies are looking for right now, while his pre-existing relationship with Bruno Guimaraes may have helped both players get the best out of one another.
Make no mistake about it, Paqueta could’ve been a gamechanger of a signing for Newcastle, but instead, he’s headed to West Ham in a club-record deal, but it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if he went onto an even bigger club in the future – Manchester City were reportedly looking at him very recently.
Even with all of their money, Paqueta may be the one that got away for Newcastle for years to come.
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