TRon

What a deadline day this is turning out to be

Frankfurt have a great record for buying young strikers and flipping them mind.

I suggested Kolo Muani a few weeks ago, but I guess Howe needs a proven PL striker. With an overseas player you are always taking a bit of a punt, so we ended up paying the PL tax+ some for transfer window incompetence of an inexperienced team.

It goes without saying, we have suffered not having a proper recruitment team in place.

Feels like we are judging this window harshly on the back of playing three games without a striker. Once we get to see us with a proper team out there, we will probably feel a lot more positive about it. We've lost a world class striker but replaced him with two very good ones and some other key positions strengthened. It might turn out to have been a great window.

It's really that simple. We desperately needed a proven striker to save our season, and we've got one. I don't really care about the overpay, would cost us a lot more to have a shit season.

People are going to say this to justify their rage at Isak. Obviously it doesn't bother Howe, he's the one who has pushed to bring him in.

We could probably have had Ekitike if we'd agreed to sell Isak at the start of the window.

At least we've got a proven striker for a very important season. That's a lot better than not having one.

Probably Eddie's choice of rat tbf. What do you think about that?

It's not what people want to hear, but with PSR restrictions, it's the truth for clubs like us and Villa. We have to sell our star players as long as we aren't in that top tier. Best we can do is replace them with similar quality, and given how hard that is, we have done ok with Woltemade and Wissa. Combined, they might even be more effective than Isak.

I really don't want to hear about this cunt any more. Might have to avoid this thread if I don't want to lose my temper.

I'm not a fan of manager led recruitment either, but there are mitigating circumstances. Howe has shown he has remarkably good recruitment instincts, and we really needed an answer to the Isak hand grenade lobbed into our season. On this front he has to be happy.

He's pissed that he's been strung along with what's turned out to be false info from someone inside the club. He'll not be getting any more exclusives after this though.

Eddie will be elated to have two strikers of the quality of Woltemade and Wissa to work with. Season is back on, full focus ahead!

People will moan about the fee for Wissa because they just love a good moan. But if he's banging goals in for us this season in the CL all that will soon be forgotten.

Yep. It is a short term deal made to keep us strong for the next few years. The profit we've made on Isak will cover it, and hopefully Woltemade will turn out to be the next Isak, and there's good reason to think he might.

Not sure how much closer we will be, but it does look like we are going to stick pretty solidly to the slow growth plan.

Our season would have imploded so yeah, pretty furious.

Exactly. Isak was only here for 3 years, and look what we achieved in that time.

It's where he always belonged the snidey cunt. At least we got a cup win in our lifetime before he ended up there.

Also - and this is really important - it shows that we at least have SOME ambition. The Ashley move would have been to buy some unknown for £17m in the hope he might turn out to be a diamond in the rough.

Well at least we know now that NUFC is a side project for PIF. They are not going to go out of their way to bend rules in order to short cut success. This is an investment for them. It's disappointing but it could be worse. At least we know they will still invest in best in class when it comes to board level recruitment. Or at least as best they can given we aren't going to have the same pull as the top tier clubs.

Because our owners are not as invested in NUFC as they are to other Saudi ventures including their own league.