Alexander Isak of Newcastle United celebrates with the Carabao Cup trophy
Alexander Isak of Newcastle United celebrates with the Carabao Cup trophy
So here we are, the all-consuming pastime of where non-winners with Newcastle United want to go next to enhance their career is surely banished into the dark recesses. The nation has wallowed in such repeated nonsense. Let it end. We are no longer also rans. We have arrived.
You want out Alexander Isak? You didn't enjoy the dripping emotion of Wembley, of scoring the winner? You want to leave a band of brothers lured by greater excitement and a potentially better future? This is a dead end?
Bruno, you put so much passion into becoming the first United skipper since Jimmy Scoular to win a domestic trophy after 70 years. So much effort in becoming the first captain after Bob Moncur in 69 to lift any pot into the night skies. It's time to leave? You are bored? Methinks not.
Sandro Tonali, it was a mistake to come here from Italy and serve a 10-month ban in a foreign land where no one cared a jot about what happened to you? Joelinton, you ought to have got out when you were a failing centre-forward because you were not appreciated? Anthony Gordon, this is no improvement on Everton and you have to move to retain your England place which the Geordies got you? Eddie Howe, this has been a stepping stone? England is your true destination. Right? Not on your life.
I'll tell you all this. You are all wonderful and now part of our history but this is where it's happening now. You don't have to be anywhere else. The future is ours. The past is the past. Who would abandon a rocket as it takes off for the moon? I know it was other people trying to get you away, not you yourself, but surely they can all pipe down now.
We didn't deserve to win a trophy this season? Oh yeah, we beat Arsenal home and away in the semi-final and Liverpool in the final. We eliminated Nottingham Forest and Chelsea before that and those four are currently the top four in the PL. Fluked it, didn't we?
Now the Wembley dust is beginning to settle on the prairie - will it truly ever? - thoughts will inevitably drift to what Newcastle do next to move the Geordie juggernaut forward.
Yes, there are still crucial Champions League points to be fought for over the closing run-in to the season so all is not over. Maybe we have got into Europe as a consequence of winning the Carabao Cup so spectacularly - or at least into the UEFA Conference League play-offs - but the real money and kudos lies on the bigger stage and Howe will not want to lose sight of that. Make the Champions League and yet another reason for blue chip players to bail out is gone.
However neither will he wish to forget about another opportunity to make a major statement. That means a summer not sitting in a deck chair bronzing the body but getting active. Becoming Bob The Builder.
United have done fabulously well but Howe, a major plotter and thinker, will not amid everyone's elation overlook the fact that certain parts of his squad are getting older by the day.
It may be harsh to mention it in the immediate aftermath of Wembley but that's what big clubs do. They move forward not stand still and admire their achievements. Certainly Howe will not fall into that trap. He is fiercely ambitious on our behalf.
The likes of Kieran Trippier (34), Callum Wilson (33), Fabian Schar (33), Dan Burn (32) and Martin Dubravka (36) are in the latter stages of their careers having helped place the first building bricks in the wall immediately after the takeover in 2021. Schar, like Dubravka, Jacob Murphy and Sean Longstaff, is a survivor of the team built by Rafael Benitez almost a decade ago.
Joelinton and Joe Willock were part of Steve Bruce's team. Fourth choice keeper Mark Gillespie has been around longer than the paint on the walls without ever playing a PL game while John Ruddy is older than everyone. Nothing wrong with long life - ask Big Dan - but a club can have too many who have been around for a very long time. If the transfer market stagnates so does the squad.
Paul Mitchell will look to reduce the average age in the summer dovetailing with the wishes of Howe. The action has to be decisive, both incoming and outgoing.
Burn of course is an exception amongst the Golden Oldies _ he may be 33 years old in May but his career is going onwards and upwards with his first England international call to arms. What an inspiration he is.
It's an amazing, heart-warming, incredible story of a Geordie lad who pushed trolleys round Asda and played football for fun with Blyth Town and Blyth Spartans. Now he is with England having scored a wonder goal to help us win the Carabao Cup and be awarded the Man of the Match trophy.
Of course to complete his fairytale rise - are you watching Hollywood? - Thomas Tuchel must as least get him on the pitch against either Albania on Friday or Latvia beyond. I think he will. Another Geordie centre-half Steven Taylor, capped at every England age group level, was twice called into the senior national squad but never got game time and therefore cannot call himself a full international. It was the same with John Beresford when he was part of the Entertainers.
Dan has overcome literally everything with a stout heart, unrelenting determination, and natural leadership skills. True he lacks what is often considered a vital ingredient in the modern game, pace, but that didn't stop Bob Moncur captaining United to their one and only European success (scoring a hat-trick in the two legged final) as well as skippering Scotland and nor did it hold back England's most successful leader ever Bobby Moore. Both played in Burn's position and are legends which is what BDB has become.
If Burn is enjoying a wonderful hurrah in his autumn years then his England team mates this week, Anthony Gordon and Tino Livramento, are very much the future of United along with the injured Lewis Hall.
All four, by the way, became England players after joining Newcastle not before which tells you a lot about why young players ought to grab a cab and get here quickly. Like in the summer.