TRon

He had a bat phone and he didn't think to pick it up last week?

Ermmm...about the Elanga part......

Quite sobering that this thread went from titled Newcastle closing in on Pedro to Chelsea sealing the deal in less than 24hrs. We might be slow movers but they certainly aren't.

But we signed some sort of agreement with the PL that we would not challenge their rulings if they allowed PIF to buy Newcastle. Chelsea owners didn't. I'm not saying that stops us bending the rules in the same way, but PIF do seem pretty determined to play strictly by the rulebook.

Given we are supposedly chasing Jao Pedro, how does that make DCL an alternative if Pedro goes to Chelsea? They are completely different types of player.

If Simons isn't the alternative for Pedro, it does make you wonder who is. Not really been many names bandied about, even the Simons rumours have been half hearted at best.

The reason why people get uptight is that we clearly have primary targets in our sights, and we get excited only to be disappointed when cartel clubs swoop in. If we had secondary targets to get excited over it would lessen the blow. We probably do tbh, but we have no idea who they are, so obviously fans being fans get anxious. Our whole season rides on it, it's totally understandable.

It's not something you can put in writing, but it should be fairly obvious to most by now that the law is equal, but it's more equal for some than others.

Maybe you are right. I don't really know the details behind Everton's new stadium project or how quickly that developed, would have to do some research for a comparison.

Bring. Him. Hyem.

I don't know if those are glacial pace or not so can't really comment. What I do know is that those projects wouldn't even be considered under different ownership.

I share these concerns tbh. It seems like we are fighting losing battles going in for these players, but we have to give it a shot I suppose. The crucial part is what our back up plans are. Hopefully we've got cards to play which we are keeping closer to our chest, but we aren't going to know that until the window has closed.

Then we need to come to terms with competing with clubs who aren't CL material for players. Our competition for signings should be Villa, Brighton, Brentford etc.

Agree, but we still have the rest of the window to see how this plays out. After last summer expectations are high this time round when we've got decent money to spend. We have to be creative in the market. We might not be a cartel club but we are still in a better position than all the rest of the clubs to spend big.

It's just the way the PL is set up for the cartel clubs. Not really a lot PIF or any other owner can do about it. Doesn't matter who the owner is, PSR is going to stop them from spending money to make up ground on the cartel clubs by ploughing their own money in. Can't really blame PIF for putting their money where it can benefit them outside of the PL. This is a PL policy which is there to protect the interests of the big clubs already at the top.

I mean the problem is PSR, nothing else. PIF will spend money on NUFC if they are allowed to. Or at least we can only really find out if PSR is got rid of.

How come there isn't a PSR stopping PIF spending money on the FCWC then?

He seems like the type of wanker who would happily go there to sit on the bench for a season tbh.

Only if it's against a big team in the PL for me tbh. I thought he was a good squad player for us, but never really made a decisive impact when he came on. I would much prefer to have kept him, we got robbed at £15m, but that was out of our hands.

While it will be great to get Trafford through the door, signing a really top quality midfielder or forward is always the one where competition is really intense, and harder to nail down. These are the players where the skillset is more rare and you get more clubs chasing the same players. We'll either have to be more creative and look for promise rather than the ready made options, or just pay more than our rivals.

We really need to have an extensive list of back up targets for just this reason. It may well be that we are working on these behind the scenes and no one has got wind of it yet, just after what happened with Guehi last season, and Eddie's own quotes about having a small pool of players to choose from, fans are understandably nervous.

I think he'll happily come if Chelsea haven't thrown their hat into the ring.

I don't need any communication whatsoever. Just get the deals done and the results tend to speak for themselves.

Hopefully we do have a good number of alternatives lined up in case we don't get our prime targets. Just going off last season and Howe's quotes I'm not sure we will.

We know all that because we are familiar with Britain and most of the major cities. For foreign players the capital city will always hold more glamour because it's recognised worldwide. It's not a huge deal, but in a decision between two clubs it might make the difference. Plus Chelsea is one of the more attractive London clubs location wise. Even if you hate them, objectively that's true.