Typically, the summer transfer window is a bleak and morose affair at Newcastle United - or so it was was forecasted on Tyneside that the 2015 window would be yet another spectacular anticlimax. The first day of July formally marked the opening of the transfer window, permitting Premier League clubs to officially begin the process of trading players and complete any pre-arranged deals. Most of the clubs who will compete in England's top-flight next season had already been active prior to the window unlike Newcastle, who were choking on their exhaust fumes, still tethered to the starting grid. The newly composed "football board" made a decidedly muted start to a summer recruitment drive expected to herald a new era at St James' Park, with supporters afforded few tangible signs of progress and there was little evidence to suggest Lee Charnley was imminently about to turn the key in the ignition. It's also looked less likely that Charnley or Graham Carr would dare to deviate from Mike Ashley's inhibitive recruitment model despite whispers on the contrary, meaning no fresh faces were present at the club's Benton training base, other than that of new head coach Steve McClaren and his coaching staff, when the players reported back for pre-season training to begin their preparations for the 2015-16 campaign. However, Newcastle's hierarchy have finally woken - and it seems the Magpies beast is finally starting to force itself into some sort of action, with the £14.5 million acquisition of Georginio Wijnaldum from PSV Eindhoven seeing Mike Ashley break his own personal Magpies transfer record. And as the need for Newcastle to generate momentum and make a decisive breakthrough in a tense quest for reinforcements escalates, whatculture.com/nufc analyses what to expect during the transfer window at St James Park.
