macphisto

Liverpool was not organic growth, yes they traded well in recent years to get over the line and win European Cups and the League but they never went more than a few years without winning a trophy, appearing in cup finals or Champions League football. Due to their history since Shankley they have world wide support and significant commercial income; they didn't go from mid table or lower obscurity like the journey we have to make. There was even talk on here, when discussing FFP, that Liverpool's position is down to the money the Moore family initially put into Liverpool in the 70's. What did Spurs win during that period? At best you could say it allowed them to hang onto the coattails of the top 5 with a few Champions League campaigns. That's not the stated aims of our owners. Were Spurs ever serious contenders for the title during that time?

All this talk of sustainable, organic growth and buying youngsters is a pipedream. Which club has ever done that and stayed at the top for any length of time? The last possible team would be Forrest under Clough and even then did they challenge much for the league after they won it? Yes, there is a place for unknowns and young players but we still need to splash the cash on big buys if we ever want to get remotely close to the self-declared aims of the owners.

Does that mean much as we've been mostly terrible during the Ashley years?

OK. If you want to believe that, even with money, it's difficult strengthen a team that failed to qualify for Europe and by consensus has a few key areas to improve then fair enough. That's not my view, with a decent scouting network it would not be difficult to significantly improve our team. I don't know what the teams that finished above us were thinking. I'm not too bothered what Howe says in regards to the transfer window as he obviously has to put a positive spin on it but look at the actions of the club. With regards to targets the club was very flexible in terms on CBs, we went from Tosin to Guehi.

If PIF are happy with Eales then I can only imagine he's taking the heat as PIF either didn't want to spend money or our FFP situation is much worse than we think. If we had money then there's no way Eales would still be in his role. If the reports are true then we went from Tosin, a free transfer, to Guehi for £60+million. Not getting a CB in between those values or a RW is just incredulous and insults our intelligence if the money was there. Only thing that makes sense is if the Guehi saga was a cack-handed way to hide the fact money was not there and say we tried to improve.

Is it not widely accepted that PIF sign-off all our deals? That's significant involvement.

For anyone worried about one of Isak, Bruno and Gordon leaving. Is that not now the only way forward? Sellng a top player every now and again for the benefit of the whole? I'd be gutted but would have understood selling Gordon if that meant we had invested across the first team.

Watershed transfer window, comparable to when we sold Andy Carroll. When I say comparable, in the sense that we can see the true intentions of the owners. PIF will not run the club anything like Ashley but at the same time we'll be equally as far away from being the next Man City. From now on it's going to just be about mid-table and possibly a lower European place every now and again. Since we signed Gordon, we have only added one first team player in Tonali, possibly Livramento too now. Do you really think PIF would accept that if they really wanted to achieve their stated goals, particularly when there are so many positions we could improve?

I'm almost at the point where I wonder if PIF like these rules being in place as they don't have to spend huge amounts of money and they don't lose face by not competing at the top of the table.

Is that not the wrong way around? Should it not be consistently compete at the top end of the table to lift our profile? We'll only consistently compete through large investment, there's no other way.

I don't really know the purpose of the Commercial Team? We all know that to grow initially we'll need inflated deals by PIF-related companies like Man City did in the past That's the whole rationale when people on here complain about the related-parties FFP rules. It's only when we're established at the top of the table that we'll be able to switch to real sponsors willing to pay for big deals. Maybe the Commercial Team is in place now for when we get to that stage? I might sound harsh but all our major sponsors are Saudi companies that would have literally taken one call from someone at PIF to put in place. I even wouldn't be surprised if our Adidas deal isn't somehow indirectly linked to Adidas sponsoring most Saudi League teams now (favour for a favour). Their only "notable" achievement is the Stack.

Am I reading these figures correctly? Saudi League 23/24 Transfer expenses: €977,388,774 Expenditures per club: €54,299,376 Saudi League 24/25 Transfer expenses: €255,847,028 Expenditures per club: €14,213,724 I know the league received large investment as a startup, but I wonder if the reduction in investment above and our summer window are a sign of PIF pulling back on their investment in football? Maybe moving the funds to the World Cup? Worth noting that the Saudi government are cutting costs in general across the board.

We will not grow substantially as a club without initial investment well above current levels. Won't happen. why would sponsors put more money into what is essentially a mid-table club?

Surely PIF should be the top thread? Big questions have to be asked about the direction of the club? We claim to want to be number one and yet all the evidence is saying otherwise now. Infrastructure: No movement on new training ground or stadium. They've had all of this time plus the time it took for the deal to buy the club to go through. Newcastle is a small city, not difficult to have at least found a location for the new training ground. No FFP considerations holding them back. Income: There are significant revenue streams that they haven't exploited to get more money into the club even accounting for related-party transactions. Compare to Chelsea exploiting every loophole and their revenue is already much greater than what our revenue is. I'm not saying we should be like Chelsea but PIF could have found ways to put much more money into the club within the current rules. This transfer window. Like under Ashley, the owner drives the club. Do you really think that if PIF wanted to make the club number one that they'd let Mitchell or Howe dictate our transfer policy like this where we've signed no one and it's arguable that the squad is weaker? Wouldn't happen. If money is so tight that we could only buy a CB then they could have got a Saudi club to buy a player for more FFP room as a last resort to boost funds. You can make valid arguments against each area but when looked at as a whole then it speaks volumes. This window reflects a change of priorities for PIF, maybe the Saudi League or World Cup are now their main priorities in regards to football. Going forward, I expect we'll be a well run club bouncing between mid-table and the lower European places; nothing like what we all envisaged when PIF took over.

In isolation, you can take this summer but if it was to stay as it is then that would be three transfer windows where we haven't improved the 1st eleven. You could argue Tonali is an improvement but he was up and down in the limited time we saw him and being an Italian international doesn't mean too much these days so the jury's still very much out on him. Lets see what the next few days throw up.

It depends what your aims are? Apart from Leicester, nearly every team that has won a trophy has paid through the nose for players. At some point you need to take that leap or else you just plateau and won't win anything. Yes, you can find bargains but you can't do that across the whole team. A good example of the mix you should aim for is say Ferdinand & Vidic with regards to transfer fees.

I can't decide between the away and third shirt as to which one is my favourite

I see the away shirt was ranked the best away shirt by the Athletic

What do you think their real main objective is now if they're just chasing shadows under the current rules?

We don't need it scrapped. We need to start putting these deals in place, even if they are "fair value". It doesn't make sense to think PIF will go from a situation where they don't exploit every income stream to one where a PIF company will pay millions to sponsor the match ball. Related sonsors are not banned and there are numerous ways we could generate income.

That's the whole crux of my argument, they haven't spent the maximum they can spend as there's a lot of low hanging fruit they haven't exploited; back of the shirt is just one example. Go back to my original post, I'm happy with how the club is being run but at what point do we question their actions v where they claim they want to be?

And in reply @Optimistic Nut There is no reason why we can't have a PIF company on the back of our shirts. A deal that goes through related-parties regulations is better than no deal. 100% agree on training ground and stadium being a measure of our ambitions.

At what point do we start to question either the intentions of PIF or the ability of Eales to push the limits of FFP which we will have to do to achieve their stated aims? I see Man U now have back of the shirt sponsors for some competitions. In the grand scheme of things, I'm very happy with the owners but there is no way we'll be competing with our current approach. I'm fine with that but they need to change their messaging to manage expectations.

He's a very strange one, one of only three players after Cole and Gordon to get 10 assists and 10 goals in a season. Makes you think whether we let him go too soon and also whether that would happen in today's game where data plays a much more prominent role? Other thing about the stat above is how I can't believe Beardsley did not get 10 assists and 10 goals during his second stint here. I'm sure 99.9% would go for him ahead of Cole if asked that question in a pub quiz.

I just started attending matches when Franz Carr played for Newcastle but was too young to know if he was any good? I do remember the crowd getting excited when he was on the ball. Any one remember what he was like?