TRon

If the price is right I am pretty sure we would sell either of those before sacrificing Minteh. No one will pay north of £20m for either for a quite simple reason - they aren't worth it. Howe might value their loyalty and love for Newcastle, and that's worth something, but when you reach a certain level, the only way to improve is to replace them with better players.

No it's not that. I'd be happy to be selling off untested players if we had spent billions on ready made superstars. It's more that we are still relying on players who aren't good enough to progress us to the next level that makes it stick in the craw.

Clubs aren't exactly tripping over themselves to offer us that big money for them I guess. Am I shocked and surprised? Well not really.

The Olise level RW you are dreaming about is Miggy Almiron as things stand currently. What narks me is that some of us were thinking Minteh might at least provide a better option for the RW as an upgrade to Miggy.

It's not really hindsight, I said we should have took it in January.

That doesn't make it any less shit though.

It's probably what Everton have asked for, but even they must have been a bit red faced having the bare faced cheek to present as an opening price.

I'll take half of what we can get for Minteh. Let's not be unreasonable.

There's only one way to look at this for me. Why am I looking at headlines about selling Minteh and not Almiron this morning? Fuck that shit.

£37m.

Ronaldo taking all the credit for the assist.

Yeah that's how I see it. He would be a good replacement for Wilson which is presumably the idea.

Not that arsed about losing Anderson tbh, he's a game player, but lacks finesse. Would be happy enough to keep him as a squad player as well so don't see any downsides really.

They've got some skill attributes scattered in there though.

He's in his final year of his contract. They might prefer to get £15m now than watch him walk away for nothing next year.

It's why I refuse to get over-excited about those sort of links in the first place. I'm sure we'd love to make those sort of signings, we just aren't in a position to make them until we are at a financial par with the cartel clubs.

Doesn't Minteh play on the RW? Playing him there and selling Almiron might be a decent answer as part of that transfer window.

Yeah I don't mind taking DCL if it's a standalone deal for a reasonable price like £15m. He's got a year left on his contract so that seems fair. But this talk about using Minteh as part of the deal needs to be quashed very quickly. It needs to be pulverised with a rocket launcher.

That's when you have to use your personal judgement by watching games instead of reading stats.

In Howe we trust. As long as Minteh's not part of the deal.

I don't mind us going for DCL but if we lose Minteh on the back of it, then that could cost jobs in the future.

He'll have to if this is the striker he wants - and seeing as we seem to have had DCL on our radar for a couple of years now, it clearly is. I'm happy to go with Howe's judgement, he's not got a lot wrong tbf, but I don't see why we would be paying a big fee if he's got a year left on his contract given his injury history. £15m sounds about right.

He should be in the Italy starting line up then, it looks a bit pedestrian.

Tyneside's best kept secret for so many years.