TRon

I think they probably leave decisions on buying players to the football staff tbh. I doubt they are kicking it up to Crown Prince whoever to put his royal seal on it.

So would I considering West Ham have already slapped a £70m price tag on him. Just smacks of another month long chase trying to barter them down to £45m only for him to fuck off somewhere else for £50m.

There's plenty more fish in the sea, but we have to start fishing in the sea instead of stubbornly pitching our line in the PL pond.

It's not that surprising really. The cartel clubs are practically the PL authorities paymasters.

That's how I read it as well.

If there's a positive to take out of this, we still have all our money at hand. It could mean if we shop abroad that we can sign 4-5 players instead of 3, and that would really boost our squad. Assuming our scouts have done their homework.

I thought that was why we hired Mitchell tbh.

Liverpool got the same favourable treatment when their former owners Hicks and Gillett got bombed out with some sort of debt get out clause.

Let's be positive, could all be a smokescreen. Our real targets might still be getting lined up on the quiet ready to unveil over the next few days!

Agree. It will be Chelsea.

Trafford will be a quality addition, but Pedro and Elanga would have given us some real pace and power up front. We need more than just Isak.

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.