In a maddening development, Newcastle United have loaned away another young defender to a League One side. This time, 19 year-old Remie Streete is headed to Port Vale FC on a 28-day loan, according to The Stoke Sentinel and others.
Streete, who won the team's Wor Jackie Award for Best U-18 Player in 2012, has never really been in contention for Alan Pardew's senior squad, despite the dearth of defenders. Still, the club's loan policy has taken a weird turn lately. Adam Campbell, once Newcastle's Next Big Thing, did a one-month stint at Fleetwood Town FC earlier this season, where he was hardly used. To be fair, there's no indication yet from Port Vale about Streete's potential role, but the fact that the Toon were apparently unable to find a suitor at a higher level of competition is disconcerting.
This move is not a death knell for Remie Streete, and he's still very young, but there's a long line of Newcastle Academy players who have started their youth career with plenty of promise, only to be sent out to low-level clubs and never really return. At the very least, it would be nice to see some ambition from the club when they're loaning out players that they're not also trying to sell for pennies on the dollar.