TRon

A tad optimistic, but we have lacked a presence up front.

Good. It will make him appreciate what he had here all the more.

We've defended well on the whole. Lack a bit of finesse going the other way, but that was always the issue.

So badly offside you can see why he's not really a striker.

Get Bruno off, he's had enough of a run out. Need him in cotton wool for the friendly stuff.

It would catch up with us quicker than we imagine. Would be a terrible outcome.

Judging from the amount of perving posts in the last match thread they know their market pretty well.

Of course they will. But if we don't get Sesko I don't see us agreeing to sell Isak so he'll have to get his head around playing another season here. I think he'll be fine once he comes to terms with it. He's reporting back for training this week, that gives a fair indication.

He has to a point. Unless he knows the PIF standpoint though it is still guesswork on a lot of stuff.

Lots of moving parts at this stage. Liverpool appear to have given up on Isak...but have they really?

FWIW I agree with you, I am dead set against selling Isak to Liverpool for exactly those reasons you mentioned, my point is that the way the PL has been structured rule-wise means selling our best players is the only way to close the financial gap in the short term. It was more of a comment on the general situation than a verdict on Isak.

Agree on Joelinton, but Gordon has been lively for me.

Think we deserved that on the balance of play.

He's returning to training this week, this is a clear sign for me that he's left the door open to playing at Newcastle this season. If he goes it will only be because we are ok with it.

The upside is we keep Isak who is far more of a sure thing anyway.

That's the unfortunate truth of it. I've yet to see any meaningful strategy where we can break out of the shackles in the short term. My only hope is that City winning their case opens the door to some APT sponsorships which are currently illegal. Otherwise it's a long haul of selling players, building a new stadium and having the best manager every step of the way.

This. Liverpool might be a fair distance ahead of us at the moment, but if they didn't see us as rivals, they wouldn't have conspired with the PL to bring in rules to stop us spending on our squad.

Yep. The cartel clubs knew this and that's why they conspired with the PL to bring in rules to stop us matching or bettering their salaries.

Agree. PSR might not matter now, but the way it is set up, you can't afford to sleep on it, as we found out when we had to sell Minteh and Anderson in a hurry.

It is a catastrophic scenario, because not only would we be selling Isak, but we'd be making Liverpool virtually unstoppable. But that's how the league is set up, I don't really see it as an indictment of the club or PIF unless Eddie wants to force Isak to stay rather than get Sesko as a replacement. What the manager wants is a key element in this because I would imagine as a club we are taking his view into account.

Was thinking this as well wrt the Sesko saga. With us being restricted to a second tier wage structure, we do have to get used to the idea of buying and selling players until we have managed to raise our income to cartel levels.

I hope you are right, but then I don't really know why we've dragged this out so long if that's the case. It's not like taking our time worked with Trafford, Pedro or Ekitike. When cartel clubs are sniffing around, they somehow manage to find a way, and with Man U, as we saw with the Covid scam, the PL will always look favourably if they want to bend the rules a little bit.

Feels like our best chance of getting this done is if Man U can't get their ducks lined up and match our bid in time. Hopefully Hojlund digging his heels in has set them back.

Yes. And I hope those who are running the club have more backbone and enough self respect to tell Liverpool not to bother picking up the phone again.

It's a terrible message to sell your best players to your rivals. Even Daniel Levy who is a confirmed money grubber refused to do that with Kane.