TRon

Yes, and that's not a disaster by any means, as that will also mean we have arrived, and are finally buying players who will earn us massive revenue. Obviously we would rather keep them, but it's still better than extending contracts of 30 yr old has beens just because it's cheaper than investing.

This is probably about right.

As far as I know Real Madrid haven't come in for him, there has just been some speculation about it which has been posted here in the last hour. I think we are jumping the gun a little bit writing farewell letters and putting loaded guns to our heads ready for his departure.

Fuck me, wish I hadn't clicked on this thread.

Avoiding dropping back into the 3rd division wouldn't be sniffed at like.

Plus having sold two of their three strikers, they are now in a position to say no sale on Pedro, especially if they rated him best all along. £30m seems a ludicrous amount for a player with almost no history, but from what the Watford fans on Loaded were saying, he is the real deal, so it might be another one of those where only silly money is going to persuade them to sell.

That works well for us both ways IMO. They aren't the type to jump ship and attach themselves to a different region or club once they've hung their mast on one, would probably be seen as flaky in their culture. You just have to see how long they've clung onto centuries old customs for proof of that. Also if they want success quickly, that means they are more likely to invest more money in buying what the club needs to get us there in the shortest route possible. All seems good to me.

Plus every single club in Europe seems to be queueing up to to take one of them on loan.

Having had a closer look at Pedro, I have a feeling we might be going for Gallagher ahead of Pulisic. Pedro was featuring wide right in quite a lot of those video highlights. Also it seems Pulisic is a bit of a prick who'd prefer to go to Old Trafford.

I watched a second video just before and yeah he definitely has something. Really fantastic feet, and you can see how he's very similar to Ekiteke. I am quite excited about this now.

Still undecided tbh, after watching his video, he shows some real talent, just not seen enough goals to convince me he's a finisher. But I guess our scouting team will have seen a lot more than me, and I doubt they'd spunk £30m on him unless they thought they had a player. Especially considering they refused to spend far less on the likes of Cornet and Dennis.

I'm just glad Eddie Howe and Dan Ashworth aren't as sniffy as some of our fans. Love how Eddie handles questions about it. What goes on over in Saudi is nothing to do with him, and it's nothing to do with the fans. If people want to hate on the club because of that - fuck them.

You only need to separate NUFC from the Saudi regime. If you can, like TCD then fabulous. If you can't then would be tough to support the club.

We will.

I think it's easier if we just agree to separate the Saudi regime from PIF. Otherwise tacitly you are saying NUFC is effectively their club and represents their values, which I am sure it does not.

We might also have to come to terms with the realisation we just aren't in a position to address all the squad weaknesses in the space of two windows. Might need incremental improvement over a couple of seasons before we can really push hard for the top 6.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the window pans out, and who we get on loan. We might be able to add some goals yet. Even this deal hasn't gone through yet, we might be arguing the toss over nothing.

Isn't he someone who is capable of playing across the front line? Including striker?

I'm sure there are kids in Brazil or France available, but maybe since we only got Dan Ashworth throught the door yesterday, we haven't had time to set up the infrastructure to spot them early enough yet. This stuff takes time to set up so we are having to take a few shortcuts. That's my reading of the situation anyway. I'd like to think a year down the line we'll be picking these guys up for £4m like Watford did. I put the blame for this squarely on the previous regime.

Where else is he going to go? He'd have to have a good season to drum up any interest, and if he does, his value goes up, and then he'd probably want to stay anyway.

Yeah you have to be prepared to wait on younger signings to develop. Same would go with this lad.

He'd be a good option off the bench anyway, why would we need to sell him? He's only 23 anyway isn't he? Could still develop into a very good midfielder.

It's part of the negotiation process. We offer £20m, they ask for £35m. We offer £25m they ask for £32m. We'll meet somewhere in the middle around £28-30m would be my guess.

I do trust Howe's judegement, but let's hope he doesn't turn into a Dominic Solanke.

Fire up the welcome to Newcastle gifs!