Newcastle United midfielder signed for £250k completes under-the-radar loan move

The English transfer window slammed shut on Friday evening but that hasn’t stopped another Newcastle United player from completing a move away.

With the Serbian transfer market remaining open until September 15, SuperLiga side Vozdovac have moved to finalise the season-long loan signing of Rodrigo Vilca.

The Peruvian joined the Magpies from Deportivo Municipal for a reported £250,000 in 2020 but has quickly become a forgotten figure on Tyneside.

Vilca spent the first half of the 2021-22 campaign on loan at Doncaster Rovers in League One but struggled to make an impression in the third-tier. A few months later, Vilca went back to his homeland with Universitario where he made 22 appearances, scoring once.

The 24-year-old returned to the United’s under-21s set up in January but is set to spend the final year of his contract at Serbian outfit Vozdovac.

“We have a football player who is officially a member of the English Premier League,” Vozdovac sporting director Bojan Leontijevc. “We established contact with Newcastle and based on that cooperation, Rodrigo will spend a year with us on loan.

“He plays on the left wing and ‘ten’ and comes to strengthen the competition in our team, given that we were in a deficit.”

In Vilca’s three years at Newcastle, the attacking midfielder has never come close to earning a first-team appearance.

Vilc added: “I had meetings with the president and the coach who ‘made’ me want to come to Voždovac. It is a wonderful club in a beautiful city, with many young players who want to make serious careers.

“I have already gained some experience, I have gone through good and bad moments and now I want to contribute to the team to achieve the best possible results.

“Dedication, effort and hard work is something that I have always provided and that can be expected from me even now.”