If Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley didn't know that the need to strengthen his squad has reached emergency status, he does now.
Michael Owen and Kieron Dyer - who appears to have reached the end - watched on from the stands in the 4-1 win over Celtic.
But the fact that Newcastle ended the night with just EIGHT regular outfield players on the field underlined just how weak the squad is going into the season.
Steve Harper ended the night in attack and Tim Krul could well have joined him as Newcastle finished with 10 players following Steven Taylor's injury.
And considering youngsters like James Troisi, Andy Carroll, Matty Pattison and David Edgar were in that number, Ashley's need for new blood has never been greater.
To be fair to Glenn Roeder, he knew 12 months ago his squad was not strong enough and we know how last season turned out.
Fair enough, we welcomed four new players in over the summer but already we've lost Joey Barton out of that tally.
And with Olivier Bernard, Titus Bramble, Craig Moore, Oguchi Onyewu, Pavel Srnicek, Kris Gate, Antoine Sibierski, Scott Parker and Alan O'Brien also gone the squad is now weaker than it was - in terms of numbers.
And last night simply rubber stamped that when Steve Harper appeared in a specially prepared number 13 shirt.
Conspiracy theorists have already pointed out that this could be a ploy from Big Sam to show the new owner and chairman Chris Mort just how paper thin this squad is.
With Ashley's millions, Newcastle should be able to attract any player on the planet to the club, if they can twist that club to sell.
But at least five new faces are needed at SJP and quickly.
And if signing a big name is out of the question for whatever reason, Newcastle cannot afford to go into the final day of the transfer window like they did 11 months ago.
A long day of attempts to buy players from the previous board, combined with a reluctance from the previous manager to go along with certain plans, resulted in the signings of Seppe Rossi and Antoine Sibierski, oh and then Oli Bernard on a free the next day when the window slammed shut.
A starting XI of say, Given, Carr, Rozehnal, Taylor, N' Zogbia, Solano, Geremi, Butt, Milner, Viduka and Owen with a bench of Harper, Martins, Huntington, Edgar and Shola, is not a bad side.
But if players start dropping like dead flies again like last night and last season, it could be a long hard winter.
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