What is the saying? A picture is worth a thousand words? Well, Moussa Sissoko's relieved expression told its own story after the midfielder posed for photographs following his deadline day move from Newcastle United to Spurs.
To think, just a few hours earlier, Sissoko was still a Newcastle player after the Magpies demanded what the France international termed a 'special offer' for one of their prized assets in 2016. Sissoko, as a result, was facing up to the very real possibility of playing in the Championship having already burnt his bridges with Newcastle supporters with his repeated demands to leave that summer.
"I will be honest with you," he told ChronicleLive. "I was worried because the deadline was at 11pm. It was 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm and the time was flying and I was still in the same position.
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"I had my agent on the phone. He said to me they are still working with the club to reach an agreement and not to panic and just be patient, but I was shaking every minute until the last one."
Sissoko ultimately got the move he desired. Everton may have come back in at the 11th hour, but Sissoko had 'already made my choice in his head'. A £30m move to Spurs was completed at the death after the Frenchman had long reached the point of no return at Newcastle.
Sissoko felt he had to play in the Premier League to keep his international career alive, following an impressive Euro 2016, but there was effectively no going back after his comments. Unlike Gini Wijnaldum, who also left the club that summer, for Liverpool, Sissoko was not shy in pushing for a move in the press and the midfielder repeatedly gave interviews to foreign media expressing his wishes to leave Newcastle.
Sissoko may have been Rafa Benitez's captain in those final months of the previous campaign, but his conduct was going against what the Newcastle manager was building at the club at the time and Newcastle supporters certainly did not hide their displeasure as they chanted 'Moussa Sissoko - we want you to go' during a pre-season friendly at Doncaster Rovers. Speaking at length about his departure for the first time, Sissoko wanted to try and set the record straight.
"If you decide to leave for another team, everyone will say, 'We went down so you left the club. You didn't care about the club,'" he said. "That is not the case. I cared about the club. Even when it was tough, I was still there, still trying my best to save the club, but we failed. This is part of football and you need to accept that.
"After the Euros, I had some offers from some good teams so it was difficult for me to say no because they were teams that were playing for the title and playing in the Champions League every year so that's why I decided to leave. It was not for the money or because I didn't care about Newcastle. It was for my progression, my future.
"It's like people in life who are working for a company and, maybe, one day, another company will give you a better job than you have and you will go. This is life. I decided to leave. It was maybe not good for the fans, but I made my choice and that's it. The only thing I can say is sorry. I didn't want to hurt them."
Sissoko was unsurprisingly booed on each occasion he returned to St James' with Spurs and, latterly, Watford. It was a far cry from the reception Sissoko received when he joined the club from Toulouse for a bargain £1.8m just a few years previously.
Sissoko was entering the final months of his contract with the Ligue 1 side at the time and Newcastle had been tracking the midfielder's progress for a long while. In fact, boss Alan Pardew had been tipped off a year-and-a-half previously by chief scout Graham Carr, who wrote his first report on Sissoko when he was just 18.
Struggling Newcastle needed a spark and Sissoko was one of five Frenchman the Magpies bought in the mid-season window to effectively help save their campaign in 2013. Sissoko quickly got to work, setting up a goal on his first appearance at Aston Villa, before enjoying one of the great home debuts in the club's recent history with a double in a 3-2 win against Chelsea, who were the champions of Europe at the time. That night gave Sissoko just a little taste of what was to come as the new arrival saw St James' Park 'on fire' for the first time.
"I don't know if there is a word to describe playing in this stadium because you know the fans will be behind you," he said. "Even before the game, when you drive to the stadium, you can already see the passion in their eyes - they are very motivated.
"When the referee blows the first whistle, the stadium is electric. You're nearly shaking because it's something you don't often see in football. The fans have something special.
"Even when they travel, they are still with the team, still making noise, still crazy. It's nice to have the support with you everywhere you go. It gives you more power, more energy. We play football to live these kinds of moments and this will be something that will always be in my head. I will never forget it."
Yet that first outing at St James' ultimately proved Sissoko's best performance in a Newcastle shirt during what was a maddeningly inconsistent spell. As far as Sissoko was concerned, 'we couldn't keep the momentum because we lost some key players' in the years after his arrival. These players just so happened to be his countrymen - Yohan Cabaye, Mathieu Debuchy and Loic Remy (loan) - and a frustrated Sissoko felt he 'couldn't say anything because he [former owner Mike Ashley] was the big boss'.
Newcastle were very nearly relegated following manager Alan Pardew's mid-season departure in 2015 - Sissoko helped keep his side up with a goal in a final day win against West Ham on a day supporters celebrated 'like we finished as champions' - but the Magpies fell through the trap door a year later. By the time Rafa Benitez arrived with 10 matches to go of that relegation season, Sissoko admitted we 'lost too many games and the damage was very deep within the squad' following Steve McClaren's ill-fated reign.
"It was crazy because we had a very good team and we lost some games that we should have won," he said. "On paper, we were better than a lot of teams, but that doesn't mean anything."
Sissoko ultimately left the club in acrimonious circumstances just a few months later, but it was a deal that ended up suiting all parties: Newcastle made a staggering £28.2m profit while the midfielder went on to play in the Champions League final for Spurs in 2019. In fact, Sissoko became such an influential figure in the Spurs dressing room that even Jose Mourinho was taken aback when the Portuguese took charge.
Sissoko is now back playing in his homeland for Nantes, following a spell at Watford, but the 33-year-old still keeps an eye on his former clubs, including Newcastle, and remains in touch with ex-team-mates Mathieu Debuchy, Massadio Haidara, Yoan Gouffran and Yohan Cabaye. In fact, Sissoko still has a huge framed photograph of the Tyne Bridge in his home, which takes him back to his first night at the club, when he held a Newcastle shirt aloft down the Quayside for his unveiling photograph, and wondered: "What am I doing in this city? It's too cold!'"
So, as the interview winds down, how does Sissoko reflect on his three-and-a-half years on Tyneside? Any regrets?
"I gave everything I could," he added. "It was nice to play for this amazing club. The only regret is when I left. It wasn't a great time for me because we went down and a lot of people were upset. I can understand that.
"I just did my best in my head and in my heart, but I spent some amazing years there and met some nice people in the city and the club. It is a club that deserves to be where they are at the moment and I'm very happy that they went back up and are playing at the top of the table."
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