The College Dropout

Was that ever realistic?

What stick? The club and Howe have operated at 8.5 maybe a 9 out of 10 since the takeover IMO as I've said previously. Things have gone very well. But anything short of "things are perfect, everyone is a genius and a mastermind and will never do anything less than perfect" is treated with contempt. I'll bang this one drum for awhile: when it became apparent that we needed to sell Minteh for PSR reasons - a good number of posters got at me for pointing that out. That came across as negativity to some, "oh the club would never put us in that position" several posters said. I mean.. you are suggesting I'm being negative for liking a wee lad that was on our books. Yes there is a risk that we rue selling Minteh because he is a talent. At the same time, we didn't really have a choice but to sell him. There's a separate discussion about whether we should've spent so much last summer, did we spend it wisely considering the demands of the season etc. But Ultimately we were a whisker away from B2B European qualification despite an injury crisis so it was a calculated risk. All this is worthy of discussion and debate on a Newcastle United forum mate.

£5-£12m. For someone behind Sels for Forest. That's an inflated fee and I think we might be back for another player.

I want a creative left-footer. Especially as Trippier brings creativity on the right and I'll expect his minutes to reduce. But I expect Eddie to want a Mbeumo type. That's how our wide players play generally.

Any confirmation on his existing contract? If we are giving him a new contract - I would believe it does expire in 2026 which is criminal of whoever handled that contractual negotiation.

I think there needs to be some restrictions. But not one that maintains the status quo. Which is why I liked anchoring. If us, Villa and whoever want to challenge - if our owners can pump in the money - let us. But don't let 1 club dominate a division the way PSG or Bayern have because their funds are too strong.

All season if he's any good. What's your problem with me liking certain players? I said on here - I really liked what I saw and read about Minteh at the end of the season and I wanted the lad to succeed in the game. For me, that's one of the little joys in the game. Seeing a young lad, thinking he might be good and following their careers.

And then we got the Ashworth deal done for the same deadline right? Gives further credence that we needed all the money from both transfers (Minteh might have had fairly substantial sell-on clauses 5-25% I assume, + his amortisation costs) and some. Maybe it's your language - but I don't think they would be "counting on it" as in - basing our strategy for this summer on City winning the case. We'll have to plan that we can't do that - for this summer at least.

Still a lot of time for him to come good. I think he's looked promising. And he cost about £8m - his value has at least doubled. I think he played primarily as a RW though and that's my boy Minteh's position. New manager though new ideas.

Minteh type signing. That £8m signing last summer has probably meant we've kept Gordon or prevented another dubious transfer.

INteresting how he handles the transfer market. At the moment with our revenues, we can't maintain adding players who cost £14m with amortisation and wages (like Tonali and Isak). And while revenues are tight signing players like Barnes at peak value, also doesn't make much sense. I do think we need more players whose value could double. And we also need to be good sellers. There's a couple in the squad who were/are ripe to be sold and we need to get maximum fees for those. Likewise with wages. We'll have to decide who should get massive wages and who should be sold while they are still underpaid (and more attractive to other clubs). He has to align with commercial obviously. If our revenues rapidly increase - it's a different job entirely.

We've gone from Ashworth is best in class to liability. I love us.

Happy yes. Excited? I don't know what I'm supposed to be excited for. We've consistently signed good players since the takeover and those lads are still there. I'm not sure what Paul is going to do differently. Put it like this. Ancelotti, Klopp, Conte. All top tier managers. Getting one of them in is a sign your club is serious about challenging. But as a fan, you also know what to expect from them all. What might be different from previous managers. With the SD role, we don't know very much.

Agreed. Like Andy mentioned - I just can't get excited because I don't know what I should expect. Paul is highly rated. Everyone wants him. We've got him, great. I just don't know what to expect from him vs Ashworth or even Nickson. Like I've no real idea of what Ashworth did. I know he did transfer negotiations and contract renewals. He seemed to largely own contract renewals and signings were a wider effort. When they didn't play there was rumours some signings were more Ashworth signings than Howe but nobody knows how true that is. I assumed youth transfers were down to Ashworth and the scouting teams.

I know he's involved - I just don't know the extent. I know he's been Head Scout - so I assume he's more involved in talent identification than Dan Ashworth has been. And clearly has a good way of working on that. But what about making transfers, contract renewals? My point is not specific to Paul but the actual Sporting Director role. He's highly regarded, I'm happy we've got him in. I'm just not sure what is reasonable to expect from him.

It's not likely? Considering you know... we did make 2 outgoing deals for that PSR deadline? Aight man. You got it. I'm out.

Agreed fully. But i'm seein threads on X of his signings and I'm wondering - how much is down to him?

Do you not think it's likely that we needed more? Considering we made another sale + agreed comp for Ashworth by the deadline? Like.. if this was Man Utd - wouldn't you assume safely that's what they needed to do?

Agreed. V. glad he's in. But he's getting credit for signing the likes of Delle Alli... even we were in for Delle Alli. I'm sure someone else identifies most players too. But aye - seems to know what he's doing. Glad he's in. Never been a sporting director before has he? Or has he? Again, I don't know who to give the credit to at Brighton. BUt Brighton kept a great handle of wages and when to sell players. Does Ashworth get credit for that? The Owner?

Did we not need to raise my money than we got for the Minteh sale? You don't think we can surmise that at least?

Aye. But I think this idea that we played up our position on PSR is overly wishful thinking. It’s as simple as it seems. We needed lots of money and explored various ways to raise it. And we did.

Seemingly not.

Aye and Brighton knew they didn’t have to match the best offer because we needed to sell. Desperately.

Claiming broke while actively needing to sell players, is not a wise tactic for securing higher fees. In fact - we didn't get the best financial package on offer for Minteh.

Aye - several clubs and agents will have been involved in our PSR issues. That's much harder to keep under wraps than hiring 1 man without a club. Why would we want to overplay our PSR issues? How does that help us when we definitely needed to sell?