TRon

I was under the impression that he was still owed 1.6bn by Chelsea but he had no intention of asking for it to be repaid.

Right. So Chelsea became a super club by themselves and Abramovich just leeched a profit?

It would be more fun if they could make up rumours which were at least a bit believable.

Abramovich got all his money back then?

Big clubs can circumnavigate tragic financial circumstances. Liverpool did it when they dumped all the losses on their previous owners, and Chelsea have done the same. Barcelona will do it in their own sweet Spanish way.

It's clear and obvious bullshit. People will end up arguing about selling him when it isn't happening.

I just think any forward we bring in must have goals in his locker. Right now I'd rather play Wiillock on the RW than Almiron or Murphy. At least if you have a front three of ASM, Wilson and Willock, you know all of them will have one crack at goal.

This page has cheered me up anywyay.

That was like me for a couple of years watching Almiron. All that chasing down players, pacy breaks threatening the opposition, the odd wonder goal to reel me back in when the doubts started to surface. Then I looked at what his actual output was as one of our hallowed three forwards, and the penny finally dropped that he's just a powder puff try-hard.

I suppose if we are writing off next season and just considering a consolidation period where finishing 9th-13th is the best we can do, why not loan him out and get him ready for future campaigns?

Right now I'm in the mind frame we might start the season with our current set of forward options. That being the case, I would like Elliott to be one of them, because he looks streets ahead of some our first teamers like Murphy, Almiron, and Wood. Maybe consider changing the formation so we can actually get people who can score goals in the final third rather than those lot.

I think he's one of the worst options precisely because he's another version of ASM.

Is he? I must have missed that, Sky were saying West Ham still retain an interest there as well, didn't mention anything about him staying at Chelsea.

Sky Sports reporting that West Ham have made an official bid for Gianluca Scamacca, understood to be around £30m. Don't know where that leaves them with the Broja deal.

Yeah that seems like a totally Everton type of move, can't see how that can be healthy long term.

Would love to see him banging in 20 goals a season in again, but I think he has wasted his last good years enjoying his wages on Tyneside tbh. He should stil be good for a dozen or so goals though.

If it becomes impossible to sign a decent forward for the right price we'll just have to come to terms with another low scoring season where defence will be the primary objective. Maybe if Fraser can stay fit for a decent patch he can contribute something.

What a load of fannying on to put on an image of professionalism. Lee Charnley and Steve Agnew could have covered most of those jobs between them and still have time to take the Sports Direct return parcels to the post office.

If that is our approach, then we might just have to have a season of consolidation, by which I mean consolidating a middle of the table finish. It does surprise me if that's really how it goes down, I never figured the Saudis to be the patient types, only because their name is now associated with Newcastle United. But maybe it's just about doing things properly and not giving the PL officials any rope to hang us with.

Might be down to a few clubs circling round the same players creating something of an auction. Then you need one to move so another player becomes available. In theory, if PSG have bought Ekitike, you would imagine that means they will now be more open to selling Kalimuendo for example.

I saw figures of around 120k being bandied about for wages, which is not outrageous in today's market. Can't speak to the injury doubts though. But regardless, you would still think there would be players available who could do a job for a couple of years, similar to Kieron Trippier. It's just a means of getting the quality level up quickly so you can compete at a higher level immediately.

One thing which is making these signings harder is we are looking at the younger market, which means there's a lot of competition, and the prices are obviously going to be sky high. When the takeover happened, I was actually looking forward to picking up some top class players more around the 29-30 yr old bracket as short term bridge buys, as clubs will let them go relatively cheaply to recoup a transfer fee while they can. Pretty sure Man City and Chelsea did this, but of course they didn't have FFP to deal with. I mean with a £50m budget you could quite feasibly buy to top notch forwards who are a bit older now. Asensio is what - 28? - and I think the fee bandied about was about £20m?

It is a foolproof policy mind - just give the sellers what they want. We'd have a title winning side within THIS WINDOW!

Not much we could have done about itbh, it was badly mishandled years ago when we were trying to get £15m for him instead of £10m back when Ashley was here. Now he's worth what he's worth, no one wants to pay a fee for a 33 yr old and PL wages.

It was SBR who brought him here, and then Souness came in and declared something along the lines of " You'll not win anything with the likes of Milner and Ambrose in your side". You obviously weren't on these forums when he was here, Milner used to get pelters from a lot of fans. Everyone remembers differently in hindsight.