TRon

At least he was smart enough not to make his desire to leave too toxic. He said he wanted to explore other options and had a thigh strain. Could have been a lot harder to come back if he'd outright said he wanted to move to Liverpool.

That should be a priority. It's already annoying how long it is taking, I just hope we haven't hung our hat on Wissa only to be told the get bent by Brentford a day before the window closes.

That tweet should be shoved in Isak's face when he droops in for training on Monday. "That's how much the thieving cunts value you Alex!"

We are going to buy a striker anyway. It's not like we should be sweating on his availability THAT much.

Then we keep Isak. It's Liverpool's problem not ours.

They probably woke up and realised if we don't sign a couple of strikers they aren't getting Isak. Time is running out.

We are wasting our time chasing Sesko and trying to lowball Brentford for Wissa instead.

Stay away from it, been on it for a few months now and it feels like I'm slowly losing my sanity.

Which is why this window is important for me as it gives a good indication of the direction we are going. 18 months ago it was easier to progress from a low starting position and before we hit PSR walls. Now it becomes harder to sustain on a lower wage ceiling than our competitors which is part of the reason players are likely to leave. But we don't have to sell unless we want to, and we could still buy the right players and challenge for one more season at least. If we sell Isak that tells me that we don't believe we can challenge at this stage and are looking for a long term investment at best with a slow crawl to becoming a dominant force. It might take more than one cycle of buying and selling players to achieve that.

If we keep Isak and sign Wissa, then we've already got a better strike force than Liverpool, and it will only cost £40m tops. The we spend the rest on improving the squad and why can't we have a tilt at the title?

Just play Osula as your striker of choice then.

Well we have progressed towards becoming a European dominant force if that's your yardstick.

That's assuming we've set a price of £150m, which I'd be surprised if we have.

How does this cunt know that we will sell at all?

If PIF don't want to challenge the cartel then it means they are happy just to see Newcastle as a long term investment and a side project effectively. We will have a good idea if this is the case by the end of the window. Unless it's Howe that wants rid of Isak and thinks he can bring in a replacement of adequate quality....which looks unlikely as things stand.

The biggest intent would be to tell Isak he's staying, buy another top striker and tell the squad we are going for the title.

This was Amanda Staveley to all intents and purposes. She has plenty of detractors on here, but she was the one who kept trying to bring massive investors to Newcastle. PIF would never have even considered coming here if it wasn't for her. She sold them the dream that Newcastle could be a world powerhouse, and tbf, without cartel intervention we could have been far sooner than is now possible.

They aren't a soft touch though. If he being sold it's either because Howe doesn't want him in the squad now, or PIF are accepting the rigged PSR system and will look to trade their way into the top echelons. They might even have accepted they are not going to be Number 1 now.

What's wrong with the Glazers like?

The Premier League has been set up this way on purpose. That's how it's designed now, and no change of ownership will change it. Ashley was the perfect owner in this regard, at least for the cartel clubs and the other enabling clubs in the PL.

Tbh that's one of the reasons we can't sell to them. They would be unstoppable with him in their side. What does that say about our supposed ambition to be #1?

Tbf, while both are great goals, they still don't really tell you if he can hit a decent strike. One is a volley where the power comes from the delivery, the second is a dink over the keeper. What I was talking about was a striker who can hit a dead ball sweetly, those are the ones who can score goals from anywhere. Isak is particularly good at this, for a slight fella, he can really hit it with some power.

I watched a highlight video yesterday when our interest was reported. I don't normally do this, but I figured he's someone we could probably sign if we really pushed for it. His highlights were really shit. A lot of his goals were deflected dribblers, and I didn't really see him hit a decent strike on any of them.

Any player who can double their wages will want to join a top club who can pay them. We can have as much ambition as we want, PSR is rigged to stop us paying those wages. Not sure how that's on the club, what are they supposed to do differently?

The same players would be losing faith anyway if we were floating between 5-8th. If PIF can't outspend the cartel, then how would any other owners do it? They'd load us with debt and cream off the profits more than likely.