The College Dropout

Increasingly I’m agreeing with this. I’ve said this in another thread. ‘Whose baby is this?’ Who is staying up at night with NUFC top of their thoughts? Yasir to me is like the other geezer at Spurs. He’s the main money man. But it’s Levy’s baby. Levy drives it. Chelsea was always Romans baby. But Marina was his underboss/consigliere. Atm it does feel like a rudderless ship.

Demand from others does drive the price up though. This one in particular is Chelsea moving mad.

I’m not negative about it. But we are likely looking at losing out on 4 of our main targets by the start of July. That is pretty shitty.

Aye this. Was always a great move for him. At 35m it looked a good deal for us at first. A £10m overpay at the low end. Then at £15m when you consider Vlad it was a great coup for them at the time. But now it’s a complete steal.

Not overly concerned with this transfer. Zenden chose Chelsea. Jeffers chose Arsenal. We got Robert and Bellamy instead. Brill.

Didn’t watch the final but he inverted to great effect in the semi I thought. In the 5 at the back he was inverting to good effect for us too. He retains that dribbling ability in midfield which breaks lines and progresses play.

I do think there’s something ‘good riddance’ about players that want to join Chelsea if it’s likely they’ll sit on the bench. But I realise it’s probably cope.

Elanga would be in addition to JP they play different positions. playing with a hard working 10 we play in much the same way but with more control imo. Lots of ways to slice it imo.

Interesting to see how Chelsea manage their squad now they are in the CL. there’s no second string European truant to play the second team.

Playing with a 10 is the only way the transfer makes sense. He’s still a pressing monster, he’s super physical as a 10 or 9 eg winning headers and holding it up. He offers something none of our players do - playing centrally between the lines. He adds another dimension to the team while keeping the core principles (hard working, athletic). Yeh if you think we are signing a £60m backup striker - it doesn’t make any sense.

I imagine there’s a running amortisation + wages budget overall that needs to be sorted across all transfer activities. That’s not going to be Howe’s remit as he does not negotiate salaries nor fees. There will be a small team working on the art of the possible with a cost budget that includes amortisation, wages and likely bonuses. And a prediction of revenue through league and cup performances

Yeh they already have a young striker that needs to develop. Why have a squad that has 2 of those? If they get another attacker it needs to be someone who is meant to be ‘the man’ from the off or they let Delap develop and give him that pathway.

As a striker - he’s underwhelming imo. Especially to be *The* striker. And they obviously have a better 10. We don’t have any 10 and he would be a great backup striker for us too.

Chelsea were after him. The fee was fine.

A LW and an AM. Ok.

JP is a fairly unique profile. City love that profile. Alvarez. Marmoush played at striker and AM.

Depends on coefficient potentially but it would be close. Which is the point of it I guess.

If PIF wanted too they could pay 80% of Durans wages for us. But it’s a bigger priority for them to save money on Durans wages than help NUFC it seems. But PIF are doing everything they can to take us to the top.

Job number one for a head coach or manager is to motivate a team. He couldn’t do that at all. He was awful and he did a vastly inferior job to Pardew and Bruce. That’s the thing about Howe. Before anything he gets players to give their all and he prioritises that mindset in his squad and team selection. Harvey Barnes has had to become a hard working winger to keep his place in this side. You can’t execute a good tactical plan without a motivated team. Obviously Howe is an ace tactician too but maximising his players effort is an absolute non negotiable for Howe and physical exertion is super high on his must have compared to say Emery. All that ‘protecting the players’ shit was misguided. Sometimes you gotta put your hands up - admit it’s been shit and you’ll all reflect and come back stronger.

I really disliked Steve. He was just so shit. And I found the grim a shit attempt at manipulation. He would act as if the bad results were a fluke and he had full confidence he could turn it around. Pardew would look like death when on a bad run. Carver rattled. Rafa would be calm but still serious. All better than that daft grin.

Oh Ashley & Owen 1 & 2

Michael Owen is up there.Barton. Babayaro is not. Duff is definitely top 5 for me.

What’s the evidence for thinking we don’t have the money for both?

If we had Sandro optimised from the start it’s a 75+ point season for us. Our problem is that lack of depth. Id be happy with those transfers + a CM Howe would play ahead of changing formations due to unavailability of 2 players.

We get both imo. They aren’t a similar profile and largely don’t play in the same positions.