Newcastle United forgotten man returns - could leave after transfer deadline
One of Newcastle United’s 2024 summer signings has been spotted back at the club.
20-year-old defender Miodrag Pivas made his first appearance for Newcastle’s Under-21s side in a 2-2 draw at Birmingham City last week.
Pivas started the game and played 63 minutes before being replaced by Cathal Heffernan.
The defender joined Newcastle last summer from Serbian side FK Jedinstvo Ub before being loaned out to Dutch side Willem II.
Newcastle have had mixed results loaning players in recent seasons but Pivas’ could arguably be viewed as the worst so far.
Following his arrival in the Netherlands, Pivas was banned from training with Willem for over two weeks due to not having the appropriate work permit documentation in place.
Without the work permit, Pivas was unable to represent his new loan club in a professional capacity. It meant he could not even train individually at the club’s training ground.
Rather than returning to Newcastle to train, Pivas returned to Serbia to train with his former club Jedinstvo while he waited for work permit approval.
Over two weeks after joining the club on loan, Pivas was finally cleared to train and play. But things didn’t get much better for the young Serbian as he found his minutes severely limited during his loan stint.
In a full season at Willem II, Pivas was limited to seven first-team appearances and no league starts as the side were relegated from the Eredivisie. It marks successive relegations for the defender, having suffered relegation with Jedinstvo before joining Newcastle.
Now Pivas has returned to Newcastle, the club faces a choice whether to keep hold of him and utilise him at Under-21s level, or loan him out once again.
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The Gazette understands Pivas is one of the Under-21s players earmarked for a loan exit should a suitable offer come in. Given his age and lack of regular football last season, Pivas will be looking to get back to playing first-team football this campaign.
Although transfer deadline for British clubs is Monday, September 1, Pivas could still secure a deal after the deadline to a club abroad.
The Dutch transfer window remains open until September 2 while the window closes in Austria, Croatia and Ukraine on September 5. Teams in Belgium and Poland are able to make signings until September 8.
The Czech, Romanian and Swiss transfer windows close on September 9 and the Turkish and Greek transfer windows close on September 11 and September 12, respectively.
Pivas could also return to his home country with the Serbian transfer window remaining open all the way until November 30.
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Miodrag Pivas reacts to Newcastle United transfer
Following his arrival at Newcastle in the summer of 2024, Pivas told the club website: “It’s absolutely unbelievable to join such a big club like Newcastle United and I cannot wait to get started. I see the project of the club and it looks great which helped convince me to sign for Newcastle.
“I see the young players have developed very well here and I would like to do the same - to develop and get into Newcastle's first team. I’m very excited and I can’t wait to begin.”