Newcastle United made plenty of difficult decisions in the transfer market this summer, both on the side of departures and arrivals.
Most of them made sense, especially considering the absolute whirlwind that the hierarchy had to navigate.
But there were a couple of decisions, specifically on deadline day, that sparked some confusion. Namely the decision to keep both Joe Willock and Jacob Murphy at the club.
At the time, I think most of us understood the decision to keep Willock, especially given Matthias Jaissle's tactical ideologies, but Jacob Murphy? That one didn't really make sense, particularly with Nottingham Forest willing to pay £15m for his services.
I gave the decision grace at the time, mainly because of how young the squad was and the need for a bit of experience, but all of that changed this week when it was revealed that Murphy isn't actually in Jaissle's leadership group...
So what is he actually here for?
£15m for Murphy and we didn't take it??
Now it's easy to look at the current situation with Anthony Elanga injured and use that as the justification to keep Murphy at the club, given he is currently the only fit senior right winger.
But we've all watched him play this season and, even without another identified winger on that side, I think most would agree that we'd much prefer a makeshift one, someone like Bazoumana Toure or Harvey Barnes, than having him on the pitch for 90 minutes.
Which makes it all the more strange that we didn't take the £15m offer from Nottingham Forest, regardless of how late in the window it was.
But, even with his on-pitch performances being nowhere near the standard we need, it might actually be off-pitch reasons that make the decision its most baffling.
Murphy is out of contract next summer, meaning the Magpies will either have to hand the 31-year-old a contract extension, or let him go for nothing next summer. So the options are either spend more money or don't receive any money, when we could have had a nice little £15m buffer in the summer. ..
Matthias Jaissle's reasoning
Jaissle has been open about the fact that one of the main reasons he wanted to keep Murphy at the club is because of his experience, which is all well and good and is understandable. But, what kind of invalidated that reasoning was not putting the winger in the leadership group and instead choosing to include the likes of 21-year-old Lewis Miley.
For the sake of giving newer and younger players a greater importance within the squad going forward, that makes sense. We also don't know the full reasoning behind Murphy being left out, so it would be unfair to draw too many conclusions from it.
But it does make the decision to reject £15m for him slightly harder to understand when experience was supposedly one of the reasons for keeping him around.
Similarly, Jaissle has spoken about what Murphy offers on the pitch, stating that he is a useful member of the squad in that sense too. Not that I want to contradict our mighty gaffer, but I and, from what I gather, a lot of the fanbase don't really share that opinion. He's the professional, though, so we'll let him off with that one.
And maybe that's ultimately the answer. Maybe Jaissle genuinely sees something in Murphy that we haven't seen yet, whether that's tactically or simply as a squad player who can be relied upon when injuries hit.
But from the outside, it's difficult to understand why Newcastle turned down £15m for a 31-year-old entering the final year of his contract, particularly when he's not even part of the manager's leadership group.
Perhaps Jaissle will prove that decision right. Right now, though, it's still one that doesn't quite make sense.
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