 Freddy Shepherd has defended Newcastle United's lack of action in the transfer market. And after pointing out that, after Chelsea, United are the "third or fourth" highest spenders in the Premiership in the close season, the United chairman called for a halt to the "ridiculous" transfer deadline system. In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle, and stung by criticism of not spending anything in the last week of August, Shepherd told me: "We have nothing to reproach ourselves for. "We have spent £15m on Damien Duff and Oba Martins and, if you take Chelsea out of the equation, then only three or four other teams have spent more than us in the Premiership this summer. And that after paying out £28m for Michael Owen and Albert Luque this time last year. "In fact, I don't think we have had a bad summer. We have got Damien Duff and Oba Martins, who we believe are real quality signings. "We also beat off a lot of other Premiership teams to get Giuseppe Rossi in from Manchester United. "Antoine Sibierski has come in as a squad member, while we have got Olivier Bernard back and Shay Given on a new five-year contract. "Perhaps our timing was wrong. If we had signed Damien Duff or Oba Martins on transfer deadline day our fans would have been dancing in the street. "But there is no-one to blame for us not getting other players in before the transfer deadline. "It's the window to blame. It is absolutely ridiculous - really a restriction of trade - and I would like to see somebody challenging it. "How can you stop someone from getting a job? What other business - and football is a business - would allow this? "We have been slammed for trying to do business on transfer deadline day, but it is no good saying you should buy before that because things don't always work out that way in football. "It's not like buying a pair of shoes off a shelf. It's completely different. It's more like a game of poker. Don't forget, other clubs do not always want to sell their players. "We do not want Glenn Roeder to buy players willy-nilly. He is trying to tidy things up for us and it cannot happen overnight. "But he has got rid of a few high wage earners who were not doing it for us and were not fitting in here. "And what he is looking to do is to buy the right players at the right price, and at the right terms, and players who have the right attitude. "The transfer deadline has come and gone until January and we have to move on. We have a quality squad of players who are the envy of some of the other Premiership clubs. "And I can assure our fans we are always on the look out for players to add to this squad," added Shepherd. | 
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