What really happened in Victor Munoz saga - Keith Downie explains after bitter transfer blow

Liverpool are up to their old tricks again - sniping Newcastle United's transfer deals. They did it with Hugo Ekitike last year, and they've done it again with Victor Munoz.

Newcastle and Osasuna had a deal agreed for the 22-year-old, who had agreed to terms with the Magpies. The deal was on. It had even been reported that Munoz had rejected Manchester United and Liverpool in favour of Newcastle.

Real Madrid had even got involved, as they own 50% of Munoz's contract. The Spanish giants opted not to activate their buy-back clause but did insert a 12-month option into the move that would have taken Munoz to Newcastle.

Everything was in place and then, somehow, on Wednesday, reports broke that Munoz was off to Liverpool after they activated his release clause.

Newcastle will investigate what went wrong

It was a sickening blow given how quickly everything moved for Newcastle initially before grinding to a halt.

Sky Sports reporter Keith Downie posted on X this morning to say that Liverpool were always at the table for Munoz and that Newcastle will be conducting an investigation into exactly what happened with the deal.

He claims that Newcastle had a £29m deal plus £4.3m in bonuses in place with Osasuna, and personal terms all agreed. However, Munoz’s camp pressed pause on the proposed move over the last 24 hours, with the player choosing Liverpool after the Reds struck a £34.5m deal. 

🚨 Newcastle thought they had a deal in place for Victor Muñoz — before a late Liverpool hijack. 
✔️ 💰 Newcastle had a fee of £29m (+£4.3m) ACCEPTED by Osasuna and the player had AGREED personal terms and told #NUFC he wanted to sign. Agent fees were also agreed. 
👨🏻‍⚕️ Newcastle had the wheels in motion for a medical over in the US and were on the verge of completing a deal.
😐 But they were instructed to wait over the last 24 hours by the player's representatives, and #LFC swooped. 
🔴 Liverpool had always been at the table for Muñoz so they didn't come in last minute, but agreed £34.5m release clause (two instalments) and Muñoz chose Anfield. 
🤷🏽‍♂️ Newcastle now trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the last 24 hours, but there was always top competition for the winger last few weeks.

Newcastle fans are raging

Unsurprisingly, Newcastle fans are absolutely furious that this has been allowed to happen. We said initially that it's not the fact that we aren't getting Munoz, because we can't be sure he'd have been everything we needed anyway, but it's the fact that we were so close and still missed out.

We can all point fingers and play the blame game, but ultimately, none of us knows what happened, and it seems like neither does anyone at the club.

The worst thing is, we're not likely to ever find out, either. For all Newcastle will investigate what happened, the chances of us lowly fans who pump so much money into the club actually finding out what happened are slimmer than Curacao's World Cup chances.

Who is next on the list then? Abde Ezzalzouli was probably option two, but his injury puts that in serious doubt. Down the list we go...