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PIF actually have a financial interest in Chelsea, they have billions invested in Clearlake Capital which owns 60% of Chelsea.

And this is why Stavely is no longer with us. Disastrous mishandling of the finances.

They'd have been able to afford him regardless tbf. They're in a good PSR position thanks to their non-player sales going through.

Could be wrong but didn’t they spend 50 to 60 odd million on him (possibly with more in add-ons)? 2nd highest transfer in Bundesliga history iirc. Imagine he’s on a fair whack, considering. Pretty sure he’s out of our reach, which is a shame.

Howe absolutely did do miracles. Everyone around us strengthened, yet it still didn't hold us back and got us a trophy. This season was more impressive than his top 4 finish easily.

Both are terms used by Geordies, just the Mackems decided to lay claim to one of them in the 90’s, alongside calling themselves Mackems, changing their logo to a design more similar to ours, and electing to adopt the nickname the Black Cats, and they have the audacity to call us 92’s.

Howe is the head coach. IMO Tino and Hall are where they should be. Both were recognised as top talents when we signed them. I can only talk about when I can see. We’ve got no long term CEO or DOF. No news 3.5 years later on stadium and training centre. 3.5 years to deal with PSR/FFP and it’s still holding us back more than any other club.

In the league, with our squad, it was about par. Man Utd and Spurs were horrendous and Villa (with a better squad) had 12 CL games.

Not many players with that Cunha/Pedro profile around. Covers two or three positions across the forward line and midfield. Interesting to see what we do next.

I really struggle with you TCD. Sometimes I like what you say but there's times like this when I feel its utter waffle. "No evidence" we werent strongly interested in the 4 players you mentioned either then. Again we are back to this thing where you pick and choose which things to believe and then dismiss others perceptions of the situation. "Not a good look?" To whom? Internet bellends like us? You do realise this is all horseshit right? To the wider viewing public we ain't no laughing stiock, in fact we've been roundly praised for our transfer business. We didn't sign Elanga or Trafford last year because of PSR constraints. We nearly did but decided it wasn't smart, given the costs. (Again, that's my perception, I might be wrong, no problem). If you mean how long it takes to negotiate a fee, we'll i entirely disagree, all clubs take their time because they try to save money, rather than to get deals done super quick to appease impatient fans. Think about how ridiculous that is by the way? "I want you to pay x millions more to get the deal done now, oh but by the way when we are skint in the next two years I'll be back to criticise you for that and tell you its 'not a good look'". We aren't that important.

With the Club World Cup this summer (double window) and a PSR deadline it seems to have been a bit distorted the reality regarding doing the business early. Man City in the winter window and the early summer window dropped a serious amount of money in response to poor performances. Liverpool have kept their business to this summer as opposed to last season due to a change in Sporting Director and likely a title boosting their financials. You also have some players that had specific release clauses, obligations to buy or contract decisions to be made i.e. Delap, Danso and Cunha. Whilst I'm not currently worried, I think the comments at the end of last season from staff and players reflect a need for incomings ahead of a multiple competition campaign. We know the areas we need to strengthen and while it looks like we're missing out on targets such as Mbeumo it partly feels like fans expected him to sign and therefore disappointed. If we ended up in September having signed Trafford, Antonio Silva, Xavi Simons, DCL and Ederson (randomly picked linked players) you'd likely have a mixed reaction of overjoyed we've made signings to those that were a "wait and see how they perform". We've got money to spend from 1st July, let's see what happens.

Courtesy of PIF

Chelsea bound to get to the semis of the CWC. More prize money coming their way.

I don't think its unfair to suggest Howe performed miracles with our squad last season tbf.

Just shy of miracles. The season went to the best case scenario. Could we get into the CL? ‘Yeh maybe if not being in Europe allows every player to play at the top of their game throughout and having some luck with injuries and the form of others… and perhaps 5th being CL too.’ We went the whole season with 2.2 fit central defenders. Jacob Murphy’s output was what 3rd best in the league at RW? And he was fit the entire season which was great because we had - natural RW for half a season. Tonali ended up being at least - as good as everyone hoped he could become - imo better. Isak was Isak and stayed fit for the whole season pretty much. Season was damn near perfect on the pitch.

We knew that in 2023 FFS.

Put money on a PIF owned Saudi club signing him.

Didn't think Leipzig would pay that much tbh (not that i would have a clue).

Is it a worry we haven't signed senior players so far. Nope, not for me. Am I worried. Nope, not in the slightest. Come August do i think we'll have signed 4 or so very good players. Absolutely.

We won't pay £80 million plus for him either. Total non-starter.

Chelsea will still sign a striker this summer if Jackson is sold too.

Thought Xavi Simmons would have been a cool alternative but (depending on what reports you believe) the lad’s on between 120-200k a week. We won’t go anywhere near that imo.

We appear to be coaching players quite well, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento are there or thereabouts up there with the best in the league, neither were when they signed. We've signed a few highly rated youngsters, apparently beating the likes of Real Madrid and Barca to their signatures.

Ekitike wont come to Newcastle

Its more a case of seeing patterns repeating themselves which gives me anxiety about this window. That and Eddie's comments about our pool of targets being very small which suggests that when our main options go elsewhere there are no real alternatives he's willing to accept.