J7

Like with any sale, it’s depends for how much, then what you do with the money. If it’s £150m, and you get Ekitike and another quality striker, I’m not sure I would be that concerned. You’d still likely have more money to play with for a RCB than we do at the moment.

How much would Sesko be expected to go for?

True. It would still end up with us having the better striker. That said, there could be some logic behind them taking away our long term replacement, assuming Isak leaves next summer anyway to somewhere like Barca.

I think he either goes for a ridiculous bid this summer (£150m plus), or next summer after a new contract with a release clause. It shouldn’t be seen as the end of the world either. We can’t be seen as a club who never let players leave or it will have an impact on the players you can sign. Selling players (including first team players) is normal. We clearly expected Bruno to go last summer and no doubt had plans on what to do next. My main concern now however is what we do after any sale. Our big signing have all been good since the take over, but it hardly seems settled upstairs. I’d like to think we have scenarios in place and we’re ahead of the game, but I’m not 100% confident we are.

Likewise. They just reported what others are going with, quickly at the end of the breaking news about our rejected bid.

That was with regards to the Ekitike bid, and a short comment about Liverpools interest. They can’t just ignore it.

£150m plus Elliot and we sign Ekitike, and I’d probably do it. We’d still need another striker of high standard though, and there aren’t many around. We need to stop bed wetting about the potential of selling players. Let’s be honest though, it’ll depend on what Isak wants. My inclination is he signs a new contract with a release clause of around £120m for next summer.

It’s barely been mentioned on SSN.

Great place to watch football. Not been in a few years though since Berwick’s nose dive and Arbroath’s miraculous rise.

Apparently they bought the rights before Jotas death.

He looks more like he’s been on an F1 training regime with the neck. Anyway, that’s a class team but I’d find it hard to leave Joelinton out given how much we miss him when not playing.

Regardless of it being Sunderland, it’s good to see promoted clubs giving it a go rather than do a Norwich. Whether it’s enough, time will tell, but it’s a good season to give it a shot given what Brentford have done.

Disagree with this. 4 or 5 signings is a must and Trafford and Elanga are the quality of signings we should be able to make without much bother. DCL would be an awful signing.

Here we go! He’s accepted the project. Only wants NUFC. ⏳

Yeah, but one of the issues might be going after players we had little chance of getting. It’s their job to assess the market and do the homework. We tried is no excuse. We seem to be haggling over a keeper we’ve been after for a year and offering less than what Everton paid for Pickford a decade ago.

The agitation is understandable now imo. It’s nearly 6 weeks since the Everton game where Howe stressed the importance of acting quickly. We’ve done absolutely nothing. It might not be as concerning if we’d done something in the previous three windows, but we didn’t. I don’t know what the issue is, but there clearly is one.

Yep. My concern would be missing out on those top targets, which were always a long shot, then those good promising squad players who aren’t necessarily brought in to start have already been snapped up. Stories of a shift in focus at this point aren’t promising. Granted, the article i saw was from Liam Kennedy.

Hopefully this is the case and we haven’t just missed out on a few opportunities.

I know we don’t want to be lumbered with players we cannot shift, but we could sign some squad players too. We need 3 or 4 starters, but I kind of thought we’d doing a bit more work like what Brighton do (at a higher level), and have a scouting system to bring in promising players who won’t necessarily start. We seem to only go after first team ‘starters’ and kids. That said, we’re nearly 4 years in and we don’t really know what’s happening behind the scenes with the CEO leaving and no DoF. God forbid Howe leaves as the whole point in having an Ashworth/Mitchell type person above was that there would be some continuation without much upheaval. Hence why the manager shouldn’t be as involved in transfers.

Five of our defenders are in their 30s too. We’re going to need numbers at some point, not fucking around for months looking for the perfect one.

True. I hope we’re being cleverer than we look. Going after a player with a question character who seemingly never wanted to come here doesn’t exactly scream that they have much of an idea at the moment.

I’m not that bothered about him coming or not personally. I’m more concerned about what the club are actually doing in this window and the ‘small group of targets’. Can’t have been much homework done on this deal.

Brighton signed Charalampos Kostoulas for £30m. A striker.

We should have some idea that a club like Chelsea will go in for him though. Again, his value is the price someone is prepared to pay. We can’t just bid for a player at the value we decide, then just shrug and say ‘oh well’. If we aren’t getting players at the value we decide, then we need to change our approach. Nobody is forcing us to shop for established PL players from clubs who don’t need to sell.

To be fair, you can acknowledge both that, and the PSR mess last summer.