TRon

Exactly. Even Isak was probably thinking "what a tit" when JDT let him walk all over him.

I'd be happy with him getting a new contract, he's a top player, but just can't be arsed with figures like 260k/week which are obviously just made up. If we could afford that much we would have offered it to Isak. It would blow our wage structure out of the water, unless we think we think PSR is not going to be as much of a consideration in the near future.

260k/week according to one of the NUFC podcast channels. I turned it off right there, not going to sit through an hour of waffle when they are regurtitating obvious drivel.

Hopefully it didn't involve any more mutual favours with one of our midfielders going their way with an overpriced goalkeeper coming ours.

I just remember the insane quality of some of those finishes and think there's no way he's suddenly turned into a bad striker. Maybe we were just a much better fit for him than Liverpool though? That's what I'm hoping anyway.

Agree. It's the same with the Geordie Journo videos, they will have clickbaity titles but they can be 30 mins long. If they don't get to the point then I just switch off and trust the news will come out in a condensed form somewhere else anyway. Mostly I can get it here anyway.

Something else which we need to mention is that Isak was under contract. If we REALLY wanted to, we could have just refused to sell him. In the end, we took the decision that keeping a player who wanted to be elsewhere was not worth the hassle as long as we could get a fee which compensated us adequately. £130m was not quite as much as we hoped for, but it still allowed us to buy two very decent replacements. We weren't victims in all of this.

How did he hide from his teammates?

He doesn't strike me as being particularly thin-skinned. You need a pretty thick skin to take on your club and all the flak you will get from the supporters in order to make sure the move goes through.

Gardening leave or compensation would have been a lot less expensive than that deal turned out to be.

PIF tried going the other way with Eales calling the shots and it backfired with Mitchell. From all the noise coming out of St James following his departure, it seemed PIF basically decided to bet on Howe, which shouldn't be a massive surprise given his success on signings. It's not ideal for me, I prefer some separation of roles, but while Howe's here I'm prepared to let him be in charge, and I think PIF have taken that approach as well. We saw the weaknesses of not having a qualified DOF at the club in this transfer window just gone. Hopefully having Wilson here will fix that.

Think that's probably true tbh, but as long as Eddie's here, then it's probably the only way to go. Howe knows a good player when he sees one, so if Wilson can do the negotiation part, that's all we really need. His role will be more of an administrative one I imagine.

I wouldn't call it a great price, I wanted £150m for a striker with his proven record in the PL. But with him being a bit fragile, it was always in the back of my mind that a year down the line he could get injured and we might never get the chance to get big money again. In that sense, I could understand us agreeing the sale in the end. At least this way we get properly compensated and have been able to use the cash to buy two replacements.

Even the sun would probably stay clear of that ghostly skin, it's impervious to daylight.

I always found his emotionless demeanour a bit odd even when he was here, but I accepted it seemed to a part of his make up and maybe his success as a striker as well. I never really bought the line that our fans adored him, I think they much prefer hearts on their sleeves characters like Bruno and Joelinton. We did well in his time here, now he's moved on and so have we. That's it for me.

Would be interesting to know what other offers he had. Can't have been many if he ended up playing at that level. He never struck me as the type who would want to go somewhere like that for the lifestyle, but who knows.

Better late than never, but glad it seems to be finally happening. Although pretty sure I said the same thing when Mitchell was announced as well.

While he's playing for Liverpool I can't help but hate him, because that's the worst club he could have gone to. Once he's done there and there's enough water under the bridge I'll be able to look back and enjoy the good memories. I really want to be thinking about Woltemade and Wissa now, don't want to think about Liverpool wankers at all.

Yep. He'd ditch Liverpool tomorrow if he got a double your offer from Madrid or PSG. We need to stop taking it personally. It might have worked out better for us anyway, we got close enough to his peak value probably.

Still not convinced on their strike options tbh. Pedro looks more of a no 10, and Delap is out injured.

This. Woltemade has done brilliantly, but Osula offers the pace in behind option which Wissa would have brought. It turned out a blessing in disguise that Frankfurt tried to move the goalposts and scuppered the deal.

The international break might also break the momentum though.

It was still probably at least 25% less than what Liverpool are paying him.

If we can go to 200k/week for any player it should be him. But even then you have to hope a Madrid or Man City don't come in with a 50% pay bump offer which we can't touch.

I agree, he seems very happy here. It will be our lack of ability to pay top wages which might see him leave.