What Brighton fans said when he moved… Dan Burn reaches Newcastle United milestone | OneFootball

On Saturday, Brighton fans will watch their team take on a Newcastle United side captained by Dan Burn.

Difficult for Newcastle fans now to imagine him in any other shirt (see above) than a black and white one.

The past week has seen Dan Burn pass a couple of personal milestones, turning 32 on Thursday, whilst last Saturday he made his 100th appearance for the club, captaining Newcastle to a 4-1 thrashing of Burnley.

The media ridiculed Eddie Howe and Newcastle United for spending £13m at the end of January 2022 on a soon to be 30 year old Dan Burn.

Not for the first time though, maybe Eddie Howe just possibly knew a little bit more about what was needed at St James’ Park, than the ‘experts’ in the media and indeed some of them within our fanbase.

Dan Burn went into a team facing relegation and was a key figure as Eddie Howe’s side amazingly had the third best PL form in the second half of that 2021/22 season. Burn started 16 PL games at centre-back and United picked up an amazing 31 points, via ten wins, one draw and five defeats.

Eddie Howe of course then produced the masterstroke of moving Dan Burn to left-back for the 2022/23 season and staggeringly, no PL team conceded less goals than NUFC.

Recent times have seen the defence hit by countless unavailable players, so Dan Burn back in the middle of the defence and he has been superb.

Only five weeks after Dan Burn made the move, on 5 March 2022 Newcastle defeated Brighton 2-1 at St James’ Park as one of those ten wins with Burn in the team, in that superb run.

Interesting to look back ahead of that 2-2 win 26 months ago, to hear what Brighton fans were saying about Dan Burn’s departure five weeks earlier…

‘Why did we sell Dan Burn?

Obvious question, but it’s clear without Dunk and Webster, we really needed the big man today [lost 3-0 at home to Burnley].

Bloom can’t have it both ways. He wants us to be a Top 10 Premier League side, yet the only significant dealing we did in January was to weaken the squad, selling a very decent player for a knock-down price to a club swimming in money – just when we had the chance of a Top 10 finish.

I would never criticise Tony Bloom, but this was the wrong decision.’

‘There was no point in trying to keep a player whose head had been turned.’

‘He’s been a good guy and probably just asked for the move?

Sometime we have to do right by people.

It’s not exactly like he asked to move to Putin (Abramovich) FC.’

‘Because he’s a Geordie, a Newcastle fan and once he knew they were interested I’d imagine he wanted to go. Often it’s about the money, but in this case I actually think that despite them probably doubling his wages, it’s not come down to wages.

I’m as disappointed as anyone that he’s gone, but I actually think the club have probably done the right and honourable thing here.’

‘Burn left and we’ve lost four out of five, coincidence not a chance he was as safe as houses in the CB role. Never took any risks never really flapped good player we’ve lost for peanuts.’

‘£13 mill was not a reasonable offer for a set prem defender.’

‘He was not a 3rd or 4th choice as the way he was playing he was our number 1 choice. If the club need £13million then so be it but at the moment we are looking poor at the back…’

‘People have got awfully short memories. Lost count of the number of times BDB got flamed for less than stellar performances over the last season or two.

He’s going through a bit of a purple patch currently but has never been an automatic choice for us.’

‘No one is talking about him playing at LB, your memory is even shorter.’

‘I wish he hadnt gone, we are missing him already, but i understand why he wanted to go.

what i dont understand is how anyone thought £13m was an appropriate fee.’

‘There’s no doubt Burn was going through a great purple patch prior to us selling him and is a miss at the movement. He’s been a solid player for us and it’s a shame he’s gone but I’m not wetting the bed like some. Some are blathering like we’ve sold Maldini in his prime for peanuts. £13m for a CB who is 30 in May and would have a year on his contract at the end of this season was good business. He’d have had no resale value if he’d stayed.’

‘Dan Burn was a decent player and a right bargain but he wanted to go back to Newcastle, and who can blame him.’

‘Will be extremely painful to watch Burn play against Brighton this weekend… a win would ease a lot of the pain though.’

‘I will quite enjoy watching him, the way it works is Dunk will play his best game for two years, we keep a clean sheet, Lamptey nutmegs Burn to score our 1-0 winning goal …’

‘There was no time to bring in a replacement and this should have been professionally and politely explained to BDB and Newcastle should have been told to just f… off.’

‘Selling Burn won’t see us relegated this season; it may well, however, cost us our coveted top ten position.’

‘There is a lot more than £13m at stake finishing 9/10 which on current displays looks doubtful. Newcastle will probably finish above us at this rate which will be a f…ing embarrassment.’

‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could swap points with Newcastle since we gave our BDB away?’

‘I was pretty firm in my view that selling Burn was OK business and we’d be OK without him. But I think we’ve now made a huge mistake – if Bloom wanted to cash in to balance the books, I guess we can’t really argue but from a footballing perspective it is terrible business.’

‘There is no such thing as true value of a footballer. It’s all about who holds the stronger position. In mitigation for the club Burn wanted to go which is the only thing Newcastle had on their side.’

‘I’m afraid this is what happens when a football club is run by people with no experience of making deals. We were easy meat for the more business savvy Geordies.’