TRon

It worked for Man City and Chelsea because they had no PSR back then. No harm in buying a 30 year old striker at his peak if it won you the title withing 3 years. We are going to have to do it with more sustainable growth given we can't just chuck PIF money at the squad.

Yep. I used to hate London because I thought only of the traffic and the congestion of central London, but it's easy to forget there are several different boroughs and many of them are like little towns in themselves and you don't really need to go into central London on a day to day basis.

Players are going to prefer clubs with a higher profile like, it's not that surprising. Players from England would prefer to sign for Juventus to Cremonese. It's not really a slight on us, just highlights how badly we've been run for a long time.

It doesn't really. He was quite happy to leave London when he was playing for Watford and we first went in for him. I read he still felt a bit miffed at us that we pulled out and went for isak at the 12th hour, so he didn't really owe us anything. Chelsea came in, and he went there, if they hadn't he'd have come here no problem IMO.

Even when he's playing for Sweden he's dreaming about Liverpool. Wtf is the matter with these Liverpool sycophants

Aye it's not the worst idea, and she's probably got as much tactical insight as most Youtube amateur coaches. I've seen her videos pop up before on my feed but never watched one. I don't think I'll watch any more either, but it was decent enough.

He won't have to be that great on headers to improve on Isak tbf.

I have a feeling if Chelsea hadn't jumped in late, he'd have been absolutely delighted to come to Newcastle.

I get what you are saying but that's not really a fair comparison. The atmosphere against Liverpool was amped up 10x because of the Isak tug of war. St James is quite often passive at some games. But otherwise I agree, when you price out the lower budget locals, you are going to get a different crowd in, and they aren't usually the ones who create the atmosphere.

Might take at least 18 months to appoint another panel I'm guessing.

There's probably a similar reason across many parts of the globe tbh.

Hopefully they just empower him to make decisions himself instead of having to refer everything to them.

If we had got an offer for even £26m then it would have had to be at least matched by a Saudi club. We didn't so in the end they did us a favour by at least buying him which allowed us to spend on other players. Blame the rest of the football world for not putting in any offers for such an undervalued player.

I wonder what British football would look like if that was the reality? English football is probably the country's most successful export, if it wasn't for globalisation it would probably resemble the 90's era. On the plus side I reckon Newcastle would be one of the biggest clubs in the country anyway, and we'd have more to spend than Man City or Chelsea for sure.

Well according to the quotes from one of those articles he demands urgency. So hopefully he'll be hammering that point home with the head honchos at PIF.

Beyond all the jokes, it does seem like another ambitious appointment. We've made mistakes but it's not for want of trying.

Didn't we have an experienced sporting director when we sold Maxi? Do you not think there might be a footballing reason why there was little demand for any of these players rather than expecting a sporting director to create demand?

This is where I am as well. I think if they just wanted to milk Newcastle, they would probably be making less ambitious hires in the executive and coaching departments. Maybe they were never going to do a Man City and pump huge amounts of money into buying a playing squad which would make us No 1, but since the rules have pretty much closed off every avenue to that, I don't even know how to judge that.

I wish we could get some sort of definitive conclusion so PIF could at least be put to the test whether they are just being ultra cautious or are actually running the club purely as a business investment and don't really intend to pump their own money in wholesale. I suspect the Man City judgement will just be met with more PL obfuscation by changing the wording of the rules or something.

Agree on Howe wanting Isak out. It's the one reason I could come to terms with selling him to Liverpool even though I vehemently disagreed with it in principle. In the end I just think Howe's opinion probably mattered more than was let on in public.

He had no prior injuries before the knee though. It might just be a case of him sorting out a few niggles after a long time out.

He won't be suing anybody, this is just this Goldbridge twat making clickbait videos.

Careful as in staying the right side of football laws. The CEO business has been handled poorly, no one is defending that. Hopefully they'll get it right this time. What else is there to say really?

Isn't that the result of one injury which was misdiagnosed originally, then in the end resulted in an operation for a long term fix? I think subsequent injuries have not been serious and unrelated. I know his contract is up in 2027 but I imagine we'll see how he gets on this season, and if it's injury free we'll look to extend it.

I didn't get that remark either, Botman has been brilliant when he's played this season. Maybe he means injury issues?