Bruno: Fee Agreed. Hornicek Signing Close.

Reports are that a fee of £77M has been agreed for the sale of Bruno to Arsenal.

It brings the inevitable end to the saga of the last few weeks.

Hopefully, this is the last of our top players leaving this window - having said that only Hall and Tino are left in the elite bracket.

One of the most influential ever Toon players

I for one don't have any ill feeling towards Bruno making the nove.

He joined Newcastle almost at the start of Eddie's reign and his passion, enthusiasm and total devotion to the shirt saw him appointed as team caprain and then club captain when Jammal Lascelles left.

Bruno was a driving force behind our rise up the table and into the CL and the iending of 70 barren years of domestic trophy success when he lifted the Carabou Cup on that glorious day at Wembley.

Last summers window as we all now know was a pivotal moment that brought home the reality that the top players needed to challenge for the title were beyond our reach.

Bruno, like Isak before him, is a player who could grace almost any team and at 28 his time to end his career with more medals under his belt was running out.

He had given his all for the Toon and, like Eddie, could take us no further.

That doesn't mean to say I am not sad to see Bruno go. Very sad.

It is in some ways the final nail in coffin of the death of the life that the club has lived over the past five years.

We have lost other top players, but Bruno was the heart, and it beat no more at SJP.

I thank him for his tremendous contribution to our history and wish him well...

Except when he lines up against Newcastle United.

Hornicek set to sign... and more to follow

Czech goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek ,24, is set to sign from Braga for £25M and joins the young signings already at the club - our fifth young signing of the season taking our spend to c£150M.

Having banked closed to £250M in sales Ross Wilson is still flush with dosh, also having whatever was in the kitty before the selling spree began.

With Jo wanting to move to Saudi there might be another £25M to top up that kitty and Pope moving on should bring in another c£5M-£10M.

That means, potentially, we may have c£175M-£200M to flash the cash in the transfer market and add at least one big signing of c50M+ and possibly two.

With a GK now sorted the priorities are a top midfielder, or even two, to replace Bruno and Jo, a RB and possibly a LB, and another CB wouldn't go amiss to cover for the aging Schar, Burn and injury prone Botman.

The old have been swept out and the new are being swept in at SJP.

At the head of the revolution is our new 30 manager Matthias Jaissle whose official appointment and joining up with the squad at La Manga is imminent.

Matthias and Ross Wilson have a helluva lot of work to do before we kick off the season against Liverpool three weeks tomorrow.

I'm sure they are up for it.

Let's start by getting more new signings through the door ASAP.

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