ISAAC HAYDEN has lifted the lid on his “painful” and prolonged Newcastle exit.
Hayden, 30, left the Magpies last week after an association with the club stretching back nine years.
However, the midfielder has been in football purgatory since 2022, when he was told by Toon boss Eddie Howe that he could leave the club.
Since then Hayden has always been halfway there, but never all the way gone, with a series of loan moves to Norwich, Standard Liege, Queens Park Rangers and Portsmouth keeping him busy.
In an interview with The Athletic, Hayden opened up on his unceremonious exit from St James’ Park, some 1,329 days after his final appearance for the club in a December 19, 2021, clash against Manchester City.
He said: “It’s been stranger and more emotional than I thought.
“I didn’t expect to receive the number of messages I did from Newcastle supporters. Some were truly amazing, and I ended up having to put my phone down quite a lot…
“Ultimately, I hadn’t played for Newcastle’s first team for a long time, so to still have that love was really nice. As a professional, you get caught up in your own performances.
“The biggest thing I’ve taken from this is how your moments as a player affect other people on a far greater scale than you could ever imagine.
“It might be a goal or just a tackle, but to somebody else, it created a lifelong memory. That shone through in the messages.
“Like, ‘I still remember that day’ or, ‘How good was that feeling’ or, ‘I got absolutely wasted in a pub that night’ or, ‘I nearly got arrested’. There were a few mad ones! That’s something that really touched me.
“This is a door closing for me. As a footballer, that side of my brain was already detached, because I haven’t played there for years, but my love for Newcastle and what it stands for was always there.
“It still is. This is a sad moment and a weird moment. It has been a long time coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
His Newcastle exit had also happened alongside personal problems, with his daughter, Adriana, after she suffered complications when she was born.
A loan move to Brighton to be closer to his London-based family had been set up before Rafa Benitez put a stop to it, while a loan transfer to Aston Villa also didn’t happen for the Jamaica international.
What would turn out to be Hayden’s 171st and final appearance in a Newcastle shirt – a 4-0 route which he says he “remembers like yesterday” – kicked off a catalogue of brutal reality checks.
Hayden admits he needed surgery on his knee, and with Newcastle – freshly backed by their new Saudi PIF ownership – spending big that January, Hayden’s route back to the first team quickly slammed shut.
And a couple of days before the end of the season, he was told by Howe that he did not feature in his plans going forward.
The former Arsenal youth star revealed he has not set foot into St James’ Park since that fateful meeting.
He said: “I couldn’t. Just the thought of going back inside knowing I wasn’t part of it any more was too painful.”
However, Hayden remains full of gratitude and doesn’t have a bad word to say about anybody at the club, recalling how Benitez’s pitch which took him to Newcastle had left him “so captivated”.
In fact, despite his prolonged absence from the Toon, he says he has always been glad to see them going in the right direction and says he would “love to come to a game again”.
Hayden boils down his situation to the simplest terms of being unlucky.
He has two degrees in sporting directorship – which he “100 per cent” wants to pursue a future career in – and is now looking towards the future of his career.
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