Was £20m, now £11m: PIF played NUFC masterclass with dud who's "above his station" - opinion

Newcastle United enjoyed a brilliant January transfer window as they brought in a number of players to bolster their squad heading into the second half of the campaign.

They were struggling in the bottom three of the Premier League just after the turn of the year and PIF backed Eddie Howe by signing the likes of Chris Wood, Kieran Trippier, Bruno Guimaraes, Dan Burn and Matt Targett.

A few months on and the Magpies are now 10 points clear of the relegation zone with seven games left to play and look set to avoid the drop.

This suggests that PIF played the January window brilliantly as the new signings provided the team with a much-needed lift.

Whilst you can praise the owners for the players they did bring in, you can also appreciate the players that they opted against going for. For example, Norwich midfielder Todd Cantwell was linked with a £20m switch to St. James’ Park at the start of the month.

Newcastle were 19th at the time of the report and ultimately avoided paying that sizeable fee for the 23-year-old, with Championship outfit Bournemouth eventually snapping him up on deadline day on loan until the end of the season. The Cherries reportedly have an option to sign him for £11m in the summer, £9m cheaper than what it would have cost the Toon in January.

This means that they saved themselves from making an expensive error as they would have, seemingly, been overpaying for the midfielder. Norwich were willing to settle for £11m in the end and that means that it would have been a blunder from PIF to pay £20m at the start of that month.

His form, or lack thereof, has also shown that they were right not to bring him to the club – for any price. He has been an unused substitute in two of Bournemouth’s last four games