macphisto

I can see where you're coming from but I'd like to think with the right people in place and a vision to sell that next summer we could be in for say Bellingham (just using him as an example). You're then talking about £80 million+ a player by next summer. It shows you how football prices have risen that £30-£40 million potentially doesn't get you much. It's a risky price bracket where you'll hit and miss. Willock was £25 million and he's an average player. I know you can point at Bruno but you're not going to get many Brazilian internationals for that price and also we're all getting carried away with him, myself included; we don't know how he's going to settle long-term. Another thing to consider is that should we spend say £100-£150 million this summer on 4-5 players then we'd be struggling to significantly upgrade the team next summer if we stuck to that same transfer plan. Personally, I hope we spend in the region of £150 million on three quality players this summer who would really raise the standard of the team. There's always a risk, but in general the more you pay the greater the possibility they'll be a success. I know these figures are ridiculous, easy for me to say £150 million but we've all heard where the owners want to be in the future. Also, based on my knowledge of Saudi Arabia, they're not going to mess around.

Fair enough, every other top club has it wrong. Salah and Mane were four and five years ago, they would be a lot more now. I have mentioned Rob Lee numerous times as an example of players we can also aim for but you just ignore it. What would Van Dijk and Allison go for now? An example where they had to spend big money, it's unavoidable if you want to win things. I am not saying this summer but we'll definitely have to start spending a lot of money next year if we want to reach the owners stated ambitions. As daft as this may sound, £30/£40 million pound players will only get you so far in this league. I doubt it would get you competing consistently for Champions League positions and you certainly wouldn't be anywhere near winning the league. Name one club that has consistently competed in England without spending a lot of money? You can't as there isn't a team like that unless you go back to before the Premier League. FA cup winners: Usual top spenders apart Everton 1995, Wigan 2013 and Leicester 2021 Premier League winners: Usual top spenders apart from Leicester 2016 Champions League: Almost always the top spenders qualify and certainly the top spenders win it.

I think this used to be true but I honestly think it's changing more and more and this is where Ambramovich and Abu Dhabi distorted the market. Chelsea and Man City have no qualms about throwing money at it until they do get success. Look at how much Man City spent on full backs until they got the right players. Personally, the best model to follow is the Liverpool model in my opinion but at times they have still splashed the cash when they had to.

How is that ridiculous when every team we will be competing against will have a few players, possibly more than a few, worth £100 million???? You can't get to the stated aims of the owners, starting from where we are without doing that in the next year or two. Also why are you ignoring what I said, I'll repeat for the 3rd time that yes you'll need smart recruitment like Rob Lee but we'll also have to spend a lot of money. The four best strikers I have seen in my lifetime are Beardsley, Cole, Ferdinand and Shearer. Based on your thinking we would never have signed Ferdinand and Shearer when we did. You can quote Everton, but I'll give you this list from the last 10 years. Some teams have won more than others but that's when structure, philosophy and managers come into play. The top 10 highest spending clubs in world football 1. Manchester City - £1.38bn – 260 arrivals 2. Chelsea - £1.33bn – 342 arrivals 3. Barcelona - £1.28bn – 156 arrivals 4. Manchester United - £1.24bn – 167 arrivals 5. Juventus - £1.24bn – 533 arrivals 6. Paris Saint-Germain - £1.17bn – 177 arrivals 7. Atletico Madrid - £940m – 216 arrivals 8. Real Madrid - £920m – 133 arrivals 9. Arsenal - £890m – 195 arrivals 10. AS Roma - £870m – 508 arrivals Liverpool are not on the list but they spent when they had to on Van Dijk and Alisson. It's dreamland to think we can somehow buck the trend of every other successful team.

This is the biggest myth in football, it virtually does guarantee success; just look at the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League most seasons. Even when you have a poor manager, no strategy and are considered to be having a very poor season like Man U, being in 6th place is still successful in comparison to nearly every other club. I'd also argue that it wouldn't take Man U for example much to make them into a competitive team again. Closer to home, the most successful team we had in living memory as Newcastle fans is when we spent a lot of money under Keegan. Yes, you can get someone like Leicester winning the League with minimum spend or Everton spending a lot and being in trouble but they are both very much exceptions to the rule. Spending money is by far the surest way to win something in football and is indeed becoming almost the only way to do it, certainly on a consistent basis. In my time, I've seen Leeds, Arsenal and possibly Spurs touted as models to follow in regards to buying young players to develop and it never materialised. You could even say the same about Newcastle and the team under Robson. I'm not arguing against smart recruitment, which is why I mentioned Rob Lee, but you also have to spend big at times. Also, a strange perspective on signing a Haaland-type player, looking at what he would bring commercially rather than what he would contribute to the team. They would only be commercially successful if they were successful on the pitch. It's great where Arsenal, Wolves and West Ham are in the league but that is not the stated ambitions of our owners "to be the best at football and challenge for trophies." Internally within the club I'd like to think they'd be looking to compete with West Ham and Wolves next season if we make some good signings in the summer, bouncing around between 6th to 10th place. To do that will still involve a decent expenditure in the summer time. If we do finish between 6th and 10th and want to seriously challenge those above us after the summer of 2023 then it would be unavoidable that we'll have to spend big money. I don't know why so many people have such a problem wanting to spend a lot of money. No one cared when we did it under Keegan which for 99% of fans who lived through those times is by far the best time supporting the club.

Not all the time as you are taking a risk with Southampton Shearer whereas the Blackburn Shearer was almost guaranteed to score you goals. Southampton Shearer could easily have turned out to be a Sheffield David Hirst who was just as highly rated around that time. In my original message, I got the Ferdinand fee wrong. £67 million was the fee to Spurs, the fee from QPR to Newcastle was nearly £94 million.

Interesting article in the Athletic about what players would go for now. Shearer is estimated to be worth £222 million and Les Ferdinand is £67 million. Personally think it would be nearer £170 million for Shearer and £100 million for Ferdinand. Main reason for bringing this up is that it highlights how much we'll have to spend to compete again. Yes, you can try to find your modern day equivalents of Rob Lee but we will have to start spending big sooner rather than later if we are to meet the stated ambitions of the owners. That's why I think talk of a £50 million budget is laughable.

I can't wait for the summer and talk of £50 million is nonsense, to put that in perspective £45 million would roughly get you Targett and Botman. In the last few days of the transfer window we had bids in for Botman, Carlos and Ekitike that far exceeded £50 million. The owners have mentioned winning trophies in five years time so I fully expect us to have a team to compete between 5th and 10th place next season. One thing I'd like Howe to do is to put down a marker like Keegan did in selling David Kelly after he was the top scorer in our promotion season. That was a brilliant move by Keegan as it sent a strong message that standards were being raised and if you don't keep up then you'll be out. It also signalled that Keegan meant serious business no matter how popular you were as a player. Possibly not all together but I'd be happy to see a few from Lascelles, Wood, Willock, Fraser and Dubravka shown the door.

I agree with what you are saying but I'd make exceptions for the right player (not Bale) who would both contribute on the pitch and possibly more importantly raise standards in training. Just look at the impact Beardsley had 2nd time around and even more recently the impact of Trippier.

I'd sell almost any of our players who were here pre-takeover and Wood from January too if we got decent fees. This could be the optimal time to sell some of them due to their upturn in form under Howe as opposed to what they were worth under Bruce.

I'd put him on par, if not better, with Rice who'll eventually go for a lot more than £60 million. Great, great player.

Another recommending then! Innocent Man by John Grisham if you haven't read it.

Are you referring to Making A Murderer? Only reason I ask is that John Grisham wrote Innocent Man about a guy wrongly convicted and sent to death row.

The ultimate litmus test of being against the death penalty would be the killers of Lee Rigby where you can be certain of their guilt. I am against the death penalty but I wouldn't be in the least bit concerned if they were sentenced to death.

Sorry to keep this going but on the subject of miscarriages of justice. Anyone read the latest court case with Chris Mullen, former Sunderland MP? Interesting situation as he was the one who got the Birmingham 6 pub bombings convictions overturned when every one thought it was clear as day that they carried out the bombings. All this time later and the Midlands police have taken him to court to get him to name the true perpetrators who confessed to carrying out the bombings. He's claiming the journalistic right to keep sources confidential. Difficult one to answer but I'd probably veer towards keeping the sources confidential. Without that in place then others may not come forward in future cases and could also be extended to other situations where people are forced to reveal their sources.

You're completely right about respecting different views when it comes to Capital Punishment. According to this article, 33 countries have used the death penalty since 2013 so we're not talking about only a few countries. It's really a question of whether the onus of a justice system is on rehabilitation or punishment. All legal systems contain elements of both, it's just a question of to what degree either way. Broadly speaking, based on the map in the article it's clear that most countries who retain capital punishment are either Asian or Islamic countries who have different philosophies to a lot of other countries. There's nothing wrong with respecting their views whilst strongly disagreeing with them at the same time. It's also worth noting that there is significant support for the death penalty in the UK so it's not as clear cut as many on here are making it out to be.

You should check out The Last Executioner: Memoirs of Thailand's Last Prison Executioner who executed 55 prisoners. I'm trying to think about the end of the book as I read it some time ago. I don't think he had regrets.

100% agree!

I think it will be the game plan too. I also don't think we'll buy many players, if any, from the Premier League. We now have a solid number of 1st team players with Premier League experience who we can complement with young players from overseas. Young players very much along the lines of Botman, Ekitike and Bruno.

The UK is known for its tolerance, we'd never send the buggers back

I wonder if any of the local journalists, Caulkin/Hope, helped Howe craft his reply? That's not to detract anything from Howe but more a sign of the good relationships that have been built over the last few months.

Sadly either do I...

What, sanctions staying in place? Personally I think they would be lifted fairly quickly. A lot of European countries were quite reluctant to have heavy sanctions when Russia initially invaded Ukraine. Those countries might have changed their stance since then but I doubt it. Or rather their resolve isn't too strong.

I guess it would depend on the settlement. If Ukraine was in favour of the settlement and Russia withdrew then sanctions would be lifted. Historically, the aim of sanctions is not to punish countries, though that is a byproduct, but rather to get countries to change their actions. If they were kept in place after a settlement then effectively we would be saying they will only be lifted once Putin is removed. The West might insist on Russia signing an agreement promising to demilitarise their European borders or something similar but that would be a pretext for keeping them in place. Similar to WMD and Iraq where the ultimate aim was to remove Saddam.

I doubt Corbyn would go against UNITE trade union who are well represented at BAE systems. Difficult to be definite but a lot people could have forecasted that a politician like Corbyn would never be accepted by Northern working class communities. Obviously, things can change but that applies to relations with almost all countries so I wouldn't worry about it.