Most Newcastle United supporters are unlikely to have even noticed, but Leicester City midfielder Hamza Choudhury completed a season-long loan move to Championship side Watford on Wednesday. It's barely a year now since a similar deal was a bridge too far for the previous regime at Newcastle, which was a fitting end to the final transfer window of the Ashley era.
A lot has changed since then, of course. The club's new owners have spent around £153m on players - more than the final three years of the Ashley era combined - and, crucially, Newcastle have also kept hold of their prized assets, who want to be part of this project rather than seeing it as a stepping stone like others did in years gone by.
There were only three survivors - Miguel Almiron, Callum Wilson and Allan Saint-Maximin - in Newcastle's starting line-up on the opening day from the XI that started the previous campaign a year previously. Nick Pope and Matt Targett both started that 2-0 win against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, following their permanent moves from Burnley and Aston Villa respectively, while Sven Botman got the chance to make his Premier League debut from the bench at the death after his big-money switch from Lille earlier this summer.
