Rich

Aye, I know they had CL last season but they've just finished 10th in France and Botman clearly wants to leave. They're not in a strong position here.

I reckon we'll have Targett, Pope, Botman, and Ekitike officially done in time for the first day of pre-season, like. Not a bad June, if it happens. Fascinated to see who'd be next.

People are just checking to see if it shows anything about their eligibility, but I've had no luck myself. Nothing's on sale.

We've got a thread for this in the tickets section already, but it's probably worth having a separate one here just so people are aware. Memberships (including Junior Magpies) go back on sale from next Thursday (30th) at 10am.

Thursday 30th

Aye, two down, about 10 to go.

And wasn’t De Gea having a bit of a stinking patch?

Downie broke this one:

When’s the last time we had two England squad regulars on the books?

Been a while since I cared, but maybe because the squad numbers aren't confirmed? Or we haven't received our shipment of letters and numbers from the PL?

We'll bring Krul home to help fill our HG quota when we're back in Europe, no worries.

Noticed this average distance thing when sharing his FBRef stats the other day. If our defence isn't going to get any quicker this summer then adding a goalkeeper that's much, much better at reacting quickly and sweeping up behind them could be very important indeed.

https://theathletic.com/1707021/2020/03/30/nick-pope-england-burnley-charlton-bury-southgate-pickford Seems a good egg, based on this.

Is the truth not just that both Botman and Ekitike are on their jollies and there are column inches needing filled?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2022/06/21/exclusive-newcastle-united-close-signing-goalkeeper-nick-pope/?utm_content=football&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1655807892 "Closer to signing" than either Botman or Ekitike according to Sewpa Luke, so probably time for a thread.

Surely Lingard's demands are going to start coming down the longer he goes without a club? Could still see mileage in that, especially when we know we were bidding for him until the last day in January. Adarabioyo was linked a fair bit then, too, was he not? Nice to see some new (old) names chucked about, anyway, after what feels like eons of Botman and Ekitike.

It's not just us with this shite, thankfully, and it's actually better here than the other places I've scoped out this week. Plenty of West Ham fans are going fucking mental over Aguerd, because it's taken "six weeks" from when it was first mooted (I don't think our supposed attempt at a hijack helped things, mind), and a load of Man Utd fans are the same about anybody that goes anywhere else that they think they should've been in for. It's a people thing, not a NUFC thing, though I appreciate it still makes for difficult reading. I reckon he'll be here for his medical within the next 10 days, it has to come to a head sooner or later and there's no way Milan will pay what Lille want.

Big assumption, but if we were to get Pope, Botman, and Ekitike in addition to Targett... a] Would we need to sign one, two, three, or more players? b] Which position(s) would you prioritise? c] What level of signing (examples encouraged) would we need to make in that position/those position(s)? ...for you to be a 10/10 for satisfaction with our summer business? For me: GK: Pope CB: Botman LB: Targett AM: Paqueta LW/ST: Ekitike LW/ST: Danjuma I know I'm a greedy fuck, but this would be it for me from the players we've been linked with more than once. If there were only two more coming they'd need to be Bruno level. That'd leave us with the old "on paper" strongest XI of: Pope Trippier Schar Botman Targett Joelinton Guimarães Saint-Maximin Paqueta Danjuma Wilson With a "backup" XI of: Dubravka Krafth Lascelles Burn Lewis S. Longstaff Shelvey Almiron Willock Fraser Ekitike And four spares: Darlow (no worries if Gillespie), Dummett, Murphy, Wood.

I think we saw how fast we can switch to alternative targets (Targetts) in January, more than once. Not worried, personally. While it's nice to get your first choice, naturally, I'm pretty sure we'll be at a point now where there are three or four alternatives that will still improve us significantly (and perhaps allow us to improve more positions by costing less).

Have we ever had an England international goalkeeper (current) on our books?

Fixtures 2022/23 - Nottingham Forest (H) first game - Full Fixture in OP Rush job because I was so offended by this formatting, use of caps, and the lack of "s" on "Fixtures", sorry.

Holy fuck, that'd be a decent signing.

Only surprise is he's not posting it at 5pm on a Friday