TRon

It's pretty much common knowledge anyway. Why else would we have kept increasing our bids to daft levels.

It's not about disliking Longstaff, it's about wanting Newcastle to become a team that qualifies regularly for the CL. If we can do that with Longstaff great. Personally I don't think he's a CL player, and I know he played a part in getting us into it for one season. Tonali is a CL player, and if we put either of them up for sale it would be reflected in which teams came in for them.

Why would any owner invest huge money into making a club 6th in the league at best? If the PSR and FFP restrictions are changed or thrown out, allowing investment in the team to match the cartel teams, then we can ask legitimate questions about throwing big money into stadiums and city projects.

I imagine the Staveley WhatsApp leaks were released as a veiled warning that there can be more obstacles raised if PIF get too ahead of themselves.

If it was unimportant, why would they have jumped through hoops to get the takeover done when the PL and most of English football itself was hostile to it? They even had to climb down and put aside their differences with Qatar over the Bein Sport wrangle which would have been anathema to them. If they just wanted a cold investment, a football club is hardly the most hard nosed decision. Even if it was for brand value for KSA, then they would want to be the biggest and the best to make it have the impact they were after.

At least that will put the Liverpool speculation to bed once and for all. Now he just needs a couple of barnstorming performances to lead us back up the table.

That's because we had a relatively easy start so really we would have wanted to be about 4pts better off than where we are. The early points papered over some cracks, but most of us will take that all day. Now we are playing better stuff but can't get the results because we keep fucking up at both ends of the pitch. Hopefully we'll click sooner rather than later, but I think Howe himself would be disappointed where we are currently sitting.

Why would they ask that when they could ask if he was one of the 10 candidates interviewed for the England job?

We haven't caught on in Saudi because we are blocked from winning anything via PSR and FFP. Winning teams gain worldwide following, that is how Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal gained traction, and precisely why they have fought so hard to stop us buying players. It would be ironic if they were rewarded for this by getting themselves bought by the Saudis which would - let's face it - suit them and the PL authorities who would have one less problem to deal with.

Agree. Sometimes it's as simple as some players are better suited to playing a certain type of way than others. Anderson and Wood look to be a lot more productive at Forest than they were here, although it's early days and the bar is a bit lower there. But you could say the same with Longstaff in Rafa's low block formation. At least there are signs that the midfield is starting to dominate in the last couple of games, even if there is still a problem where the goals come from.

You can understand why the PL officials would be keen to go down that route though. They've come out of this as prize pillocks for the most part, this way they could find a new pantomime villain to throw under the bus.

I do agree with you on this. I like all three individually, just not sure they work well as a combination. Bruno as a sitting midfielder can cause issues if we are caught upfield, and we aren't really getting any goals from any of them.

Due to lack of end product from the forwards if you scratch below the surface.

Playing Barnes on the right effectively takes away another goal threat since just about every goal he's scored for us has been cutting in from the left. But Gordon also wants to do that, don't think he would take kindly to being moved to the right too often.

Wood was never the answer, he would not have stayed as a third striker, and tbh we can't afford to keep spending tens of millions on players in their 30's who we have to write off. We did it with Burn, Trippier and Wood, and it worked out because they saved us effectively. But with PSR, it was right to go for someone in the Osula mode, although how good he actually is is anyone's guess.

We need to win the cup game. European qualification we can make up even if we lose a run of games, but once you are out of the cups you are out.

I know that, once we signed Isak we were never going to keep Wood as a third striker. Effectively Isak was bought as Wood's replacement even if it was done in reverse order.

Longstaff isn't a 6, he is either going to play as the advanced midfielder or on the right.

It's worth bearing in mind Wood was never our third striker as people keep referring him as. He was our 2nd striker as backup to Wilson. We sold Wood and bought Isak unless I'm remembering this wrong. The third striker is Osula, although even that's not strictly accurate as he's fourth choice behind Gordon.

Exactly. The only way he comes back in is if there's a change to the formation and we drop a forward and bring in an extra midfielder.

As for bringing back Longstaff, sure. But I'm not sure how that fixes anything since we played relatively well on Saturday but we rely on a couple of players to get the goals, and if they don't we're fucked.

I do think people get far too precious about this. It is just a discussion, you don't have to agree with it.

I don't know who's going to tell them because it won't be the PL authorities.

I'm still glad we got most of our money back on him. If we want a backup striker in their 30's I think we could probably find someone for a bit less.

I's not about one game though, we've scored something like 8 goals in 8 games, and gone 400 mins without scoring a goal from open play, and we've got tougher fixtures to come. There's too much built around Isak scoring, if you can stop him, and stop the LW from coming inside and having a pop, you've pretty much got yourself a clean sheet.