Lewis Hall had interest from Manchester United, and he still signed on at Newcastle United until 2031. That tells you plenty. Players talk about projects all the time. Most of them follow the money, the status or the noise. Hall looked at the situation, looked at the club, and stayed put.

It came after a turbulent summer on Tyneside. Eddie Howe left, Matthias Jaissle arrived, and uncertainty naturally followed. For a young player, especially one attracting attention from a club as big as Manchester United, that can be the point where doubts creep in. For Hall, it had the opposite effect.

Hall made clear the speculation never dragged him off course. He said to Chronicle Live : “No. I guess whenever you’re linked to another team, you know that you’re doing something right.

“I guess it’s just a credit to your own performances and how you are as a player, how you are as a person.

“I took that as a positive, but at the same time, I knew how much I love playing here and I knew that since the manager came in, I knew the ambitions and what we wanted to achieve.

“After not many conversations, not many training sessions, I knew that the manager was going to be really good for this club and I knew that as a team, bringing in new players and improving the squad was really important and as soon as we did that, it was a no-brainer really to sign.”

That is direct and useful. No spin. Hall likes the environment, trusts the manager and believes Newcastle United are building properly.

Jaissle has started steadily, with eight points from the first five Premier League matches. That is not enough to prove anything decisive yet, but it is enough to suggest the transition has been handled competently.