Newcastle United Fail To Sign Bryan Ruiz & Liam Ridgewell

Newcastle fans, reports tonight suggest The Magpies have failed in last ditch bids to bring Bryan Ruiz and Liam Ridgewell to the club. With 30 minutes left of the transfer window, it's looking highly unlikely now that Newcastle are going to get that striker they have been searching for since Andy Carroll's last minute move to Liverpool in January. Back then Alan Pardew bemoaned that he only had a few hours to try and bring in a replacement and a last minute bid for West Ham's Carlton Cole didn't materialise in a signing. Now Pardew and the Newcastle board have had months to prepare for the transfer window and all summer when it was open to try and find somebody to wear the number 9 shirt (or bloody 99, who cared as long as they played up front) but haven't been able to do it. So 2 hours or 7 months, it doesn't matter, Newcastle have failed. They have failed the fans. An embarrassing offer for Bryan Ruiz tonight when he had already enjoyed the grand tour around Fulham ande then failed to turn up for the helicopter to the North East to undergo talks with Newcastle did nothing but make the black & whites look absurdly daft as they have done nothing but add a few more grand a week on Ruiz's wages at Fulham. There can be no excuses from the Newcastle board. They had six or seven genuine targets, all foreigners (they didn't once look to the Premier League despite proven goalscorers Peter Crouch, Craig Bellamy and others being available), but have failed to gain the signature on the contract of any of them. A mixture of failing to agree terms with players and/or a transfer fee with a club... has cost them. And as a Newcastle United fan with a bunch of strikers that to me look relegation quality... I really hope it doesn't bite us in the ass and in a few months we spend January trying to find another striker to get us out of this mess. I mean hell we were offered Federico Macheda on loan for the season and couldn't get a deal made. Likewise an attempt to bring Liam Ridgewell to St. James' Park seems to have broken down too. Nothing like leaving things till the last minute. If the money we got for Kevin Nolan and Jose Enrique funded the transfers of Davide Santon and Yohan Cabaye.... where did the £35 million for Carroll go? On Demba Ba and Sylvain Marveaux's agents and signing on fee's? Give me a break.