macphisto

Not in my top three, but Wood deserves an honourable mention as he was a key player in helping to keep us up. Also got a decent fee when we moved him on. This is ridiculous thread really as we could make a case for nearly every post-takeover player😂

I don't get the focus on Elanga, Gordon's been equally terrible without the excuse of being new to the team and set up. He's far more of worry.

If the right forward became available then I could see us flipping Wissa, similar to Wood, at a loss to secure that position longterm. All depends if we identify any young forwards next summer or summer of 2027.

What did he say?

Infrastructure in terms of the training ground and sports medicine to reduce injuries/maximise performance. I'd then say an umbrella philosophy that covers player and management recruitment, and youth teams to ensure a club is consistent in their approach. Lastly the use of data in all of the areas above. How to judge a previous role? Somehow measure all of the areas above.

You can add them as squad players but not as 1st team players. There's also no guarantee that these players will eventually come good. People talk about Brentford, Brighton and other teams; all we concentrate on are the players that come good but there are a lot that fall by the way side (Google the most expensive arrivals for both teams). People make it sound so easy to buy a young cheap player; it's a very difficult thing to do. Reminds me of Ricky Gervais asking Bowie to "just knock off another Life on Mars" .

I honestly think he could walk into any team in the world.

We don't know what we intend to spend. We might move up a gear for all we know; look at our targets this year as an indication where it appears we just couldn't compete financially. Who knows what we will do but we should give ourselves the freedom to decide. Get in as much money as we can and then look to build on that in future years. We are already behind the "top 6" and should look to close the gap as much as possible. The Isak money should be seen as a bonus not an end to our PSR issues for the next few years.

There's a massive benefit in pumping money into Newcastle as that gives them more freedom and would also show more "organic" growth on paper rather than the big bang you describe in 2027. When I say freedom, they don't have to use all the financial freedom that would be there for them but it would be good to have it. It might be moving money around, but we are completely different to their other investments. I don't see any of their other businesses being forced to sell assets on the cheap like we did last year.

I don't get this thinking, why would you not maximise income at every opportunity as it would put you in the strongest possible position? We've just lost our main striker, partially due to PSR, and possibly a number of our key transfer targets because of PSR. None of the other clubs would rest on their laurels just because they've sold a player for a big fee.

Be very careful with the sizing. I'm a medium in the regular shirt, players version, but the pink medium one was too tight. Tried large and that was too long.

This is where I have my doubts about PIF and their ambitions. Not sure how true “More loopholes than a sieve,” is but apart from the Greek goalkeeper, we should have exploited at least one loophole.

Speaking of Souness, I can't think of a more corrupt transfer than Boumsong under Souness.

He gets a lot of unjust criticism, when people say dismantle it's almost like he got rid of a lot players at their peak. Beardsley was past it and Ginola was only good for the first six months here. Ferdinand sale was forced on him. Yes, he brought in Barnes, Rush, and some bad strikers, one who was the lead forward for France when they won the World Cup, but he does have an eye for a player. Speed, Solano, Given, Hamman, Dabizas and Tommason were all his players even if the latter did not work out. Look at Liverpool, he brought Suarez, Carroll, who would have been great without the injuries, and Henderson. I look at some of the other managers, notably Souness, where there was just a series of terrible players.

If we went off stats then Ruel Fox would be in for goals and assists on the RW. All about opinions🤔👍

I went off when they were at their best, for me Dyer was easily ahead of them both. I can see where you're coming from and as I say I don't think we've had a truly great player in that position. I just think people forget, for all of his limitations, Dyer was one of the most important players in Robson's team; much more than Solano in my view.

GK: Given (don't think we've ever had a truly great keeper) RB: Trippier CB: Burn (in the team for his character) CB: Woodgate LB: Beresford (don't think we've ever had a truly great Left Back. Confident Hall will be) LW: Robert CM: Lee CM: Tonali RW: Dyer (don't think we've ever had a truly great Right Winger) FW: Beardsley FW: Shearer

You can't say that about Woltemade, as he appears to only have become available at the end of the window. Who knows how long we had been tracking him? From the outside it seems more of a choice between Wissa and Strand Larsen. Guehi was never a serious target this summer. As for the other targets, yes the others were widely quoted but we don't know who else we were looking at. The club has a long history of keeping some targets close to their chest. Say we had got Delap, who knows if we might have then gone for a overseas midfielder as we would have had the luxury of balancing Delap's PL experience with an overseas midfielder new to the league; It's all about maintaining the right balance in the squad. Don't focus so much on paper talk, look at who we've signed under Howe. Off the top of my head, Isak, Tonali, Elanga and Woltemade are our four most expensive signings and three of them are from overseas. From the very first window of Guimaraes +Burn, Trippier and Wood to the latest window, Howe has always bought a mixture of PL and overseas players.

Almost starting to regret returning my pink shirt for my money back

That's not correct, we bought Woltemade and had bids for Ekitike and Sesko and according to reports were interested in a few defenders in Serie A, where we ended up buying one, Thiaw, from there. How is that almost exclusively Premier League? It's lazy to say Howe just wants Premier League experience. Our highest fee two years ago was Tonali, two years later it's Woltemade (didn't buy a player last year). Howe, like any great manager, looks for a mix of Premier League/overseas experience and is what he has done from the very first window.

We did buy two players from overseas plus the Korean teenager.

To a certain extent that's on us. If we don't want to be seen as a stepping stone then we need to be far more aggressive in circumventing PSR and exploiting every loophole.

Next summer will depend a lot on the fitness levels of Botman and Joelinton this season. If they're injured a lot then it's obvious that we have to replace them. If they play only a decent amount of games (not sure what that would be) then it's tricky as do we sell when we can still get money for them? Obviously if they play most games and Bunce is happy with their fitness then we'd keep them.

Ashley, Souness, Isak, Owen

Cole was very different as he was just one of several strikers who you could consider to be at the same level in different ways; Ferdinand being one of them. You can't say that at the moment and it's the only reason Isak has gone for such a high fee. He's not an amazing player but there's just not too many other forwards around. This might have already been mentioned, but I thought it was almost certain that Isak was nursing an injury for the last few months of last season. Reading some if the articles today, not sure that's the case and if so we've taken Liverpool to the cleaners.