The summer transfer window has only just opened, but Newcastle United have already been handed plenty of bad news in their pursuit of fresh talent. It had initially looked like the Tyneside club had successfully agreed a deal to sign Victor Munoz to bolster their squad. However, he will now join Liverpool instead after the Anfield club swooped in late to sign him right under the Magpies’ noses in a dramatic transfer twist.
Munoz is unfortunately not the only high-profile player that Newcastle United are set to miss out on during this difficult opening phase of the window. It looks like another one of their highly reported transfer targets is also going to be joining one of their fierce Premier League rivals. Earlier this month, widespread reports broke stating that Newcastle United were strongly interested in signing Marco Palestra from Atalanta, but that move is no longer on the cards for them.
According to a definitive update from Italian transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano, Marco Palestra’s move to Chelsea is now a done deal, receiving the famous ‘here we go’ confirmation. There is a full verbal agreement in place between all involved parties to finalize the transfer smoothly. Atalanta are set to receive a substantial total transfer package worth over €55 million plus a lucrative sell-on clause, while the player will sign a long-term deal.
It is certainly not hard to see why someone with the unique profile of Palestra would have drawn the intense scouting interest of Newcastle United. The young Italian fullback is coming off one of the best individual seasons that any defender has ever had in modern Italian football. Now, that is a massive claim to make, but I feel that Palestra achieved things last season that not many, if anybody before him, might have done.
Palestra was officially named the Serie A defender of the season for his incredible performances. That is an exceptionally rare feat for an attacking wing-back to achieve to begin with. Past winners of this prestigious individual award have largely been traditional centre-backs like Kalidou Koulibaly, Bremer, Cristian Romero, Alessandro Bastoni, and others who dominate the penalty box, rather than wide defensive players who hug the touchline.
That is not even the end of the remarkable story though. Palestra incredibly won the top defensive award in pretty much his first full season playing at the senior level of football. In the past, he had only made sporadic appearances here and there for the youth academy or brief cameos but had never been a regular starter. To step up and dominate the league so quickly shows his world-class potential.
And the most impressive thing about his award-winning campaign might be the fact that he achieved this while being away on a temporary loan spell at Cagliari. That is a club that would have been entirely content simply to avoid relegation to the lower tier. Playing in a team fighting at the bottom of the table naturally puts a defender under an immense amount of pressure during matches week in and week out.
Also, if you closely overlook the teams that were eventually relegated, then only one single team in Serie A conceded more total goals than Cagliari over the course of the season. Yet, despite playing in such an exposed defensive unit, Palestra impressed the league authorities enough to be named the absolute best defender in the entire competition. That says a lot about how well he did individually.
Someone with the defensive resilience and attacking output of Palestra could have been an excellent, transformative addition to this Newcastle United team under their current setup. And I have a very strong feeling that newly appointed manager Xabi Alonso might know exactly how to get the absolute best out of him at Chelsea, leaving Newcastle to quickly go back to the drawing board to search for alternative targets.
