TRon

It makes sense. Sesko is an expensive deal but if they are asking for £50m for Wissa then it starts looking less expensive by the hour. The PL tax is fucking ludicrous.

No one is paying £50m like.

I honestly shudder when I think back to what came before him ( Rafa excepted ). Too easy to take this man for granted. What a brilliant ambassador he is for the whole city.

It will be all of the above, but not location. Newcastle is a superior location from a neutral perspective. Ok I'm not neutral, but if I was that would be my opinion. But if he can double his money and increase his chances of winning a truckload of trophies, then you can't really blame him for wanting that. But he signed a contract and if he plays ball, we can maybe let him leave next season.

Why are we supposedly in for Sesko and Wissa then?

When did we say we don't want to sell. ? Only message I have heard is that Isak is not for sale.

Point is, we won't sell unless we get a fee we are happy with. Whether that's £145m or £185m. If we decide we don't want to sell - and this is our message so far - there's fuck all the bin dippers can do about it.

I think that might finally register with some fans if they sold up and went elsewhere. We might end up with better owners but if history tells us anything....

He's going somewhere. Question is whether it's us or somewhere else, like Man U.

You said "I bet he goes for about £130m with a remaining £15m being in add ons" That doesn't add up to £150m mate. Come on now.

I'd want to keep him on a longer contract tbf, but that would be the emotional decision, not the business one. If you look at it from a financial POV, £150m is probably the highest his value will ever be. It's just the idea of selling to THEM which sticks in the craw.

Except you were implying we would sell him for under £150m, now you have revised the figure up. For me if we get £150m then I would contemplate selling. We don't have to, but at least it's probably as high as his value will ever reach. He's 26 this year so don't see it going above that after another season which is when we would ideally sell.

That suggests they weren't so confident they could get us to sell Isak. Now they are trying to take the piss with derisory offers just to unsettle him.

It might just be we are looking to see if we can sign Sesko first. Then if we do end up selling Isak for a MASSIVE fee, then we'll take up Wissa as well.

Selling Isak will not be a disaster if we play it right. The last thing we want to do is sell to one of our rivals, but if they pay a massive premium and we maximise his fee, we can use that money to buy 2-3 top class players to replace him. If we play this right, there's no way we come out losers, I don't care what the social media narrative is. We hold the whip hand here, not Liverpool or Isak.

They will be if our owners adopt the victim role like you. Liverpool can't force us to sell, it's as simple as that. If they want Isak they will have to pay a figure which would suit us not them. He's still got 3 years left on his contract, and I don't see us backing down to the red wankers.

Are you a stocks trader?

A lot of that success has relied on Howe overdelivering though. It doesn't address my main point which was that we can't grow our revenue base without being allowed to invest significantly, which in turn would attract better levels of sponsorship. The rules seem to me to be a restriction of trade, and as such should really be challenged. I'm guessing that the only reason we haven't done this is because we signed a waiver to prevent us doing it in order to take over the club.

He can have one if they pay enough money.

Yeah but that means if he goes it will be on our terms, not Liverpool's. They will have to pay seriously big money to take him out of Newcastle with 3 years left on his contract.

Not up to date with Twitter or any other rumour mills this evening, but the journalists on the The Back Page on Sky Sports seems to think we are keeping him. Apparently PIF have said he's not for sale and they seem to think there's a fair chance we'll hold firm on that.

One thing which troubles me about the leadership at the club: when PIF took over, we immediately signed a deal with one of the biggest brands out there in Adidas. They would have thought what a great club to get in on with that fanbase and the richest owners in the world. Four years on and why would they want to increase their spend when they know we aren't likely to be winning trophies and regular CL slots because we don't have the spending power of the cartel clubs? PIF should be challenging this as restraint of trade. We are absolutely being punished financially through restrictive practices to stop us investing properly in the club. Who is fighting this corner from our side?

It's a good question. Reporters get to ask Howe questions on team matters, but who do they ask when they want answers about the running of the club?

I wish we would show some stones and actually pull something like this.

It's one hell of a deep fake if it isn't.