At the beginning of what seemed a great week for Newcastle, the most depressing bulletin of the entire transfer window may arrive.
Manager Eddie Howe confirmed that another talented Newcastle player had been transferred for reasons other than football.
Before Newcastle kicked the arsenal emphatically through the main door of the St James Park on Wednesday night, Lloyd Kelly, 26, had slipped silently from behind.
Kelly, a defender only signed from Bournemouth last summer in a free transfer, joined the loan Juventus and will permanently sign for £ 20 million at the end of the season.
It joins Elliot Anderson, £ 35 million to Nottingham Forest, and Yankuba Minteh, £ 30 million to Brighton, which were sold last summer and everything in the name of maintaining the right side of the financial regulations of the Premier League.
We can discuss all day about this. There are those who will harden persistently on the failures of the expense rules, on how they restrict competition and put a lid in ambition. And they are right.
Lloyd Kelly made only 14 appearances for Newcastle after joining a free transfer last summer
Kelly has joined Juventus in an initial loan that will become permanent for £ 20 million in the summer
Likewise, without any restrictions, a club like Newcastle, backed by Saudi Arabia, would have already had Jude Bellingham, Mohamed Salah and Vinicius Junior with contracts of millions of pounds and all others. sport type
What is out of doubt is that until something gives, so far the rules of the Premier League and Europe become more intelligent, more flexible and more nuanced, a club like Newcastle will remain stuck, arrested by the limitations of its infrastructure and Your own ability to make money.
And that is why this week we have all been seeing the impressions of the artists of a new Newcastle United stadium.
Nobody has yet called him Wembley del Norte or has asked the taxpayer to help pay it, but, with an expected capacity of 70,000, he is beginning to feel as fundamental for Newcastle as a new Old Trafford would be Manchester United.
Newcastle's season is still progressive. Sixth in the Premier League and now in the final of the Carabao Cup.
But that is the progress of Howe's name and has reached a context of relative parsimony, since Newcastle has tried to recover part of the money spent in the first days of the Gulf property.
Howe's team fought last season to remain competitive. The weight of the Champions League and national accessories was too large.
So they had to return this season, but they had no choice but to do so in depth of a negative spending in summer.
Newcastle's season is still progressive: sixth in the league and in the Copao Cup final
There is only one response to the Newcastle stadium dilemma while reflecting on whether to demolish St James and build a new land
Newcastle will not be constantly successful until they find a way to earn more money
At exactly the moment when it should have been growing, in terms of depth and quality, Howe's team was doing exactly the opposite.
And this cannot continue. Not if Newcastle wants to be what we have thought for a long time they should be. Competitive, convincing and successful and full of stories.
Newcastle has not won a national trophy for 70 years, which is the kind of things you have to say twice to really believe.
They have much of what they need in their place now. But they will not succeed constantly until they find a way to earn more money.
They are the Tottenham of 2025, only with the owners who once they have won will be more than happy to spend it.
Tottenham is always a good reference point in conversations like this. His stadium is something wonderful.
You have to visit it to understand it. It is phenomenal in every way. But it is also an cash machine.
White Hart Lane turned more than 1 million every day of the game. The new place makes £ 6 million per game.
The brilliant new Tottenham stadium offers a plan for Newcastle to increase income
Newcastle must take advantage of fanaticism and obsession of its fans.
Times that in 19 Premier League games and launch Cup matches, European accessories, American football, rugby league and pop concerts and you can see a path to a new type of future that extends before you.
This is what a new stadium does by Newcastle. This is the path they need to walk. Because it allows them to build on fanaticism and obsession. It allows them to milking and tightening a audience born in the creed of black and white.
Name rights agreements can help with all this. Expanding St James park can help with all this. The club is also seeing the latter as an option. But neither will open the door as wide as Newcastle really needs to leave.
Few people once go to St James park without being imprisoned. It seemed and sounded wonderful on Wednesday.
But if there really is an opportunity to start again on almost the same land plot, it must surely be taken.
This is the crossroads to which the Premier League rules have delivered to Newcastle. If they make the wrong decision of this, it will not be Lloyd Kelly that they sell but, not now, but eventually, it will be someone like Alexander Isak.
Ban the snacks for a month
Fabian Hurzeler, Brighton's manager, has been reserved five times this season and sent from the shelter once.
He has said that he must learn, but he doesn't seem to have done so.
Fabian Hurzeler seemed surprised after being sent to Nottingham Forest in September
The young German is not alone. Andoni Iraola in Bournemouth and Julen Lopetegui, recently fired by West Ham, also has four reservations in his name from a 42 card account accumulated by a total of 20 Premier League managers this season.
It is clear that something is wrong. Managers cannot be reserved for offenses or ball. They can only be warned by what they say, so they seem to continue to give the worst example to their own players and, in fact, to the football community in general.
It is unacceptable and unnecessary and shame our sport. Many of them give the appearance of being out of control and in fact above the law.
That, in large part, they are. The punishments transmitted to the criminals of the touch line are piffling. Small fines and prohibitions of a party contact line if they are really unfortunate.
These are sanctions that do not work. A team does not suffer if its manager is in the stands and remains from the costume to part time for a single game.
It would be different if they were told to stay away for a month. That can make Hurzeler and the rest think again.
The problem of the slut of your own creation
Arne Slot says he will not judge the success of the Liverpool season for how many trophies they win.
The problem is that it has established the bar so high that absolutely everyone else will now.
Arne Slot has established the bar so high in its first season in Liverpool that trophies are expected
Lopetegui cross cables
The beginning of Graham Potter's life as West Ham's manager has been decent enough to suggest that the club has made the right event, even if there is still any repentance within that things did not go better because of their predecessor Julen Lopetegui.
West Ham's sources tell me that Lopetegui tried to buy the traditions and history of the club in a way that surprised them, even becoming the first manager in the memory to appear without being asked for an annual dinner organized by the charity arm of the club.
In the field, unfortunately, things were less accompanied by some players complaining that they were often drilled in a certain way of playing during the week, only to appear on the morning of the game day to discover that the plans had changed.
The cup calendar does not help anyone
The FA Cup weekend starts on Friday when Manchester United Leicester host ends Tuesday when Nottingham Forest goes to exeter.
That is also the night that Manchester City plays Real Madrid in the Champions League and is certainly an inventive way for FA to diverts the eyes of his own competition.
Soon: The FA Cup final will be played on Christmas Day. At midnight.
Declan Rice and Arsenal fell short once again in Newcastle on Wednesday night
Arsenal, humble
Declan Rice was running for looking for fights on Wednesday night.
That can be seen well when you sell the Premier League champions one Sunday, except when you just fly your third Big Cup game in the one month space.
It has been a great week for Arsenal, for better and worse.