Newcastle were the winners of the window for putting leadership, honesty and character above flashing cash on one-season worldie STAN COLLYMORE

EVERTON, Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester City all had very good transfer windows – but none were better than Newcastle’s.

For the number of players they brought in and the quality of those players, I’d give the Toon 9/10.

Yes, they paid over the top – to Brighton for Dan Burn in particular, who at £13million was £6m or £7m more than he should have been.

But they obviously recognised how valuable his Geordieness will be to the team as well as his experience.

The captures of Kieran Trippier and (left to right, below) Burn, Matt Targett, Bruno Guimaraes and Chris Wood showed those in charge of recruitment had thought outside the box.

They have recruited based on character rather than splashing money on a world-class talent who, in a relegation scrap, might have had one good game but then gone missing for a couple. They have done their due diligence on players who are homegrown, who might fly in the Championship and who will be good in the dressing room.

Leadership

They have gone for pragmatism, honesty and leadership, and have ticked all the boxes, which is much better than just spending pound notes for the sake of it.

Everton’s business has been excellent as well, given they have strengthened an area that is the heartbeat of a team with two players, Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek, who between them could and should give some industry. Both can play as orthodox midfielders, get forward, create and make something happen.

And if you include the arrival of new manager Frank Lampard, I’m giving Everton a very good 8/10.

For Dele, this is the last-chance saloon, though, and the situation he finds himself in now reminds me of when I went to Leicester to work for Martin O’neill.

My career had drifted, I had a lot of well-documented personal issues and I had a manager at Aston Villa in John Gregory who was having none of it. Dele hasn’t found any love from Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, and has got to the point where he has realised, ‘Nothing I’m going to do here will be good enough’. Lampard will be the opposite, he will support Dele as O’neill supported me.

And if it wasn’t for him going on to Celtic at the end of my first season at Leicester and me breaking my leg, I would have loved to have had two, three or four years with him because it would undoubtedly have prolonged my career.

Opportunity

I enjoyed my football again, I couldn’t wait to go to training, I was scoring hat-tricks in the Premier League and if Dele can feel like that there is a massive opportunity for him.

Villa (8/10) did their serious business early in signing Philippe

Coutinho, Lucas Digne and Calum Chambers, Tottenham (7.5/10) strengthened with Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski.

And I like Manchester City’s business of extending Joao Cancelo and bringing in a youngster everyone was looking at in Julian Alvarez (8.5/10).

I also really like what Burnley did in signing Wout Weghorst for £12m after selling Wood for £25m given he’s arguably a better goalscorer – they had an 8/10 window.

On the flip side, the team who had a bad one was Arsenal, who were saying they’d be proactive and get players in but didn’t, and all that happened was they lost their captain and best goalscorer.

It wasn’t bad business to get rid of Pierre-emerick Aubameyang but where was the replacement?

It was a 2/10 window, at best, for the Gunners because nothing was done.