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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.

Howe is keeping this club together imo. What else looks to be done at a world class level recently?

I'm bothered like, unless anyone is aware of another player who can cover Joelinton/LCM and also up front Fucking Chelsea man

Ive got absolutely no issue with anyone saying that we need 4+ players. I think that's fair. We've got aging players, the squad needs a refresh and we've got much bigger commitments this season. It's the cry arsing about the player they want, not signing when they want them and for the price they think they are valued at. "Another window of this bullshit". Fuck off you entitled little bellends. This is the best its ever been for me and I went to my first game in 1994.

Miracles We had a good season but howay there's no need to exaggerate.

We were never seriously looking at Grealish or Rice. There’s no evidence of strong links to either. Several of these players we’ve been chasing for years. Still having protracted sagas to get them signed or not. It’s just not a good look. I’m personally not overly worried. Particularly when we are gazumped by others. But the protracted nature of the Elanga and Trafford deal don’t reflect well on those meant to be closing deals. And again - the uncertainty around the clubs management - isn’t a great reflection of the leadership either. We can only judge the window at the end. There’s some positive indicators in our approach but a lot of negative indicators too.

Have always trusted Scott Wilson the most.

Not massively bothered about missing out on him to be honest, but my bigger concern is what form of due diligence the club performed on a prospective deal. Was he always hanging on for Chelsea? If we had any inclination of that, we should have moved on weeks ago.

Agree, but we still have the rest of the window to see how this plays out. After last summer expectations are high this time round when we've got decent money to spend. We have to be creative in the market. We might not be a cartel club but we are still in a better position than all the rest of the clubs to spend big.

Last time I looked we qualified for the champions league and villa didn’t. Keep doubling down on your crazy argument though.

I still think his future is at right back, but strangely again in this tournament he was much better in the opening 2 games where he played left back. Was much quieter when he was moved to right back for the rest of the games.