A bright future and a dismal past

So it wasn't quite the deathly quiet transfer deadline day we'd been expecting. There was another arrival, for a start: Servette's Kevin Mbabu. Surely some mistake, though - the dreadlocked defender is Swiss, not French... Also unlike our other transfer window signings, the 17-year-old is very much one for the future - albeit a player who, according to the Journal at least, we've nicked ahead of Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs.

Meanwhile, the Xisco Kid is no longer a drain on our resources, his contract having been terminated by mutual consent. No sooner had he been released than he'd signed up with Spanish second tier side Cordoba. And thus ends his unhappy history on Tyneside, one which started promisingly enough with a debut goal. But that came in a dreadful home defeat to Hull and turned out to be the only time he hit the net for us in eleven measly appearances over four and a half years. £5.7m per goal - even 'Appy 'Arry's eyes would water at that sort of statistic.

Also continuing to ply their trade away from St James' Park, though only temporarily, are Curtis Good and Bradden Inman, whose loans at Bradford and Crewe have been extended until the end of the season. Mehdi Abeid is our latest loanee, farmed out to St Johnstone in the SPL and with plenty to prove, you'd imagine, following the Silver Fox's recent comments about the failure of our young players to suggest they're able to make the grade. (Incidentally, whatever happened to the Silver Fox's opinion that the SPL is too weak for our players to learn much there? He'd already sent Paul Dummett and Conor Newton to St Mirren even before Abeid's move.)