Value for money?

Medical passed, ink on the contract dry, smile frozen in history with the first picture of the summer of a new lad holding up an equally new Newcastle shirt.

Yep, Yohan Cabaye has officially joined Newcastle and kicks off what will hopefully be a very decisive summer. Decisive for a manager poised to put his stamp on the club. Decisive for a much vilified owner looking to gain some support. Decisive for NUFC fans who are awaiting to see just what the ambition of the club is in the transfer market.

Cabaye has been loyal too Lille and that loyalty has seen him raise the French league tittle this past season. He's a well respected player in France and should become a good member of Newcastle and represent the club well. He's becoming a regular player for the French national side and is a very steady footballer.

It's a good deal for the club and will add quality whilst saving funds for further reinforcements. Some may feel that he is a type of player that isn't really a "need" in our squad, but I disagree and feel that the powers that be know exactly what need they are filling.

Which I guess brings us onto the rest of the transfer window. With only a few million spent it means that we still have a lot of powder kept dry that we can perhaps use at a later date. In fact with the signing of Cabaye you could argue that keeping our money made is a sound decision. I mean would anyone complain if we got another three or four players of Cabaye's quality for the same kind of fee?

It's this kind of careful approach that is hopefully going to set us up for a good season. Don't get me wrong, I'm acutely aware that you generally pay for what you get, but it doesn't mean that the club shouldn't try and buck the trend like they've managed to do with Hatem Ben Arfa, Cheik Tiote, Yohan Cabaye and even Dan Gosling.

It's about getting the biggest bang for your buck, and I think the Toon are doing that right now. Hopefully it won't stop there and we can look forward to some more diamonds being unearthed. In fact if we're careful perhaps we could even stretch to a ready made diamond?

I think the one thing that we can gain from this summer is that the club have put a lot of work into their potential targets. I mean exploiting unknown release clauses like they did with Cabaye and are reportedly doing with Neil Taylor smacks of hard work and careful planning. Sure the critics may point towards them being at the cheaper end of the transfer scale, but Graham Carr and the rest haven't done bad at getting us some good European players for reasonable fees so perhaps they deserve a bit more trust.

Time will tell of course, but keeping money in the club, or not wasting it unnecessarily, can only be a good thing. Whether that money be used to pay off some debt, pay wages, or pay transfer fees remains to be seen, but all three of those scenarios will benefit the club long term.

Now we need Graham Carr and Alan Pardew to get us some more cheap players of the Cabaye ilk!