The College Dropout

I don’t agree. People act like Bruno Fernandes is prime Gareth Bale.

Florian Havwirtz

I’m convinced you can’t build an elite side with Bruno Fernandes. If they get Cunha that would have replaced the goals and assists. Cunha + £40m is a great deal for them.

They don't have a RB at all

Our best players were signed from abroad. I'm happy to continue with that. Howe was happy to go for Etikite and JP previously.

Is he the only person at the club that does this? Mitchell's job was to sign players, negotiate contracts and negotiate sales. The identification of players will involve numerous people/scouts, manager. No way does Mitchell lead the scouting, that's not his job. His job was to set direction on what the scouts should look for and decide who we should decide and work with CEO on budgeting and strategy. Mitchell might have an in with certain agents though.

Honestly, don't think Fernandes will be a crazy loss.

Constantly changing DOFs now doesn’t have a massive impact. None of them have stayed long enough to have made a meaningful long term impact that we’ll have to adjust.

This is not true. The biggest issue is our FFP position. We did plenty of work with no DOF. We did plenty of work with Ashworth. We had little money to spend with Mitchell. Next season we’ve got some funds from sales, additional sponsor revenue and additional revenues from CL. We’ll get work done. From the recruitment side all we’ve lost is a negotiator. Nickson, Howe nephew, Howe, the data and scouts all still there

From what I can see. They use consultants to hire "best in class" people. But they aren't strongly led or empowered in strategic direction. And as you say, big decisions are slow. Staveley is a big miss. She had drive, direction and influence, although she seems to love spending other people's money a bit recklessly. Disappointed in Eales handling of the DOF role. It seems a power play in retrospect because he didn't have the power.

I do think journalists do hear things they can't share - frequently. I've not paid close attention but oftentimes they do share small tidbits that turn out to have a lot of truth behind them. Football clubs are fairly large businesses. Newcastle isn't that big of a city.

I've said this for a long time. Ligue 1 is the best league for it too - physical. La Liga, Belgium works well. I think FSG are looking into it. Chelsea, Man City, Brighton already at it. It's part of my "PIF don't do everything they can to make us a success" view. They give our rivals massive money. They don't use the Saudi league to park players for us.

The Geordie Journos said they had heard things about Mitchell

Bit of a rehash that one. We knew most of this.

Hislop sometimes talks some real shit about us on ESPN.

Lad would turn down Barca because of the locks rivalry? I respect it so deeply.

Casemiro's going newhere. He loves Manchester.

Osimhen. Toney maybe.

Kamara is rumoured to be on £125k-175k

We could also just build the club in Eddie’s image even after he leaves. A big physical team of athletes that can press. Iraola could work with that. For almost 20 years Chelsea more or less had a team in a certain image that Mourinho built. Ancelotti made it work. The Conte and Tuchel teams were similar. every great Newcastle side plays fast aggressive football with pace. ITS THE NEWCASTLE WAY.

There's a big difference between influence (Guardiola, Arteta) and zero control (Maresca, Slot). It's not semantics. Eales decided unilaterally to change Howe's job. Pocchetino left Chelsea when they insisted on that model.

Merino, Onana, Lavia/Dewsbury Hall and Curtis Jones 4th man at their clubs. Ours is Joe Willock. It’s not going to work.

Not happening unless there’s a release clause.

I don’t think Howe expects full control. He just wants strong influence. From the Eales quotes - Mitchell was brought in to decide contract extensions, sign and sell players without permission from Eddie. Howe focuses on coaching. Howe is not a finance man. He can’t make all the decisions. Some players will need to be sold that he wants to keep. He’s aware of that. But he wants players that he wants. And he wants his voice heard when players contract are up for renewal. Eddie would’ve taken Etikite or Joao Pedro it seems but Isak was the number one target. im not sure if Eales was in post. But PIF and Ashworth were there when we decided to go from £20m on Etikite, £30m on Joao Pedro, to £60m on Isak. But it was Amanda and some degree Howe that’s blamed for the splurging. Same goes for everyone else we bought at a premium - Eales was right there.

Think the problem was Mitchell was brought in to do it a very different way to Eddie. One that would fundamentally change Eddie’s role or force him to leave. Eddie has disagreements with Ashworth but they worked well together enough that Ashworth wanted Howe at Man U. But Ashworth wasn’t a transfer target man, Mitchell is. And I do think some Ashworth era signings weren’t Howe’s first choice but Howe was happy enough to take them. Eg I just think Antonee Robinson is a perfect Howe player and we were linked but we got Hall instead - probably a higher cielinf.