TRon

Someone described his finishing as streaky earlier in this thread. While I don't know much about him personally, for £30m you'd want to know the lad can finish consistently. I'm not saying he can't, like I said I don't know much about him, but I assume Nickson or whoever will have a good idea.

Yeah well I think top 6 is probably beyond us this season, a reasonable aim should be 7-8th.

West Ham are hardly untouchable. I'd expect us to be eclipsing them this season if we get a couple of top class forwards in.

Obviously there's a budget in place, but not necessarily that we have £X million pounds available and not a penny more. The budget simply means we won't be taken for mugs and will expect to get value for money, whether we spend £50m or £150m. That's not a ploy to hoodwink anyone, it's just good business.

Yes.

Yep. We need to keep our feet on the ground especially considering Big 6 clubs will be competing with us, but don't rule anything out if the right players become available this window. As pointed out by @Optimistic Nut Asensio is in the mix as well.

I think that's a decent attitude to have, but I still think if players of top calibre become available within our wage structure, we'll find the money to make it happen. Paqueta and Diaby certainly fall in that category of you grab them while you can.

Well they've already put a price on his sale so it's not like they are locked in on him staying.

Both would make sense tbh. Might not be doable in this window though.

Yes, we are obviously trying to get the best deal, but I see this as similar to the Carlos chase in January. Lyon don't want to lose him, but if they get a really big fee they will do it. It does put them in a tricky position though, as he could probably double his wages coming to England so they will have to weigh up how much they value an unhappy player in their squad.

I don't think Paqueta will actually be sold this window tbh. He might have asked for a move, but doesn't sound like Lyon are going to let him go unless they get an eye-watering amount. I can't see us or Arsenal stumping up €65m, and I don't think Lyon will drop their valuation to do us any favours.

They just don't want to pay the wages, otherwise most of our cast offs are actually very good championship players, including Clark.

If Shelvey can play a deep midfield role then so can Bruno.

Thing is though he's still got three years left on his contract, so unless we get an offer we consider worthwhile, he'll have to fight for his place here regardless of how he feels. He's a good keeper but at 34 I don't see many teams giving us enough money to make it a deal which makes sense for us.

I reckon we could still spend big on a right winger regardless of buying Paqueta. We might have planned to restrict our spending to around £80m this window, but if the right player becomes available we can spend more or less whatever we want.

That's my understanding of it. We aren't in a position to buy the best in class for a lot of positions otherwise I'm sure we would have liked Darwin Nunez on our books this summer. So if there is a chance of getting one in any position I would think we'd throw our hat in the ring when one becomes available, even if it's not a priority this season.

It's not an emotional attachment to Dubravka though, i'm quite happy to see us buy an upgrade. I just don't think he's a bad keeper just because we've bought a better one.

That's disrestpectful tbh. He obviously does back himself and that's why he doesn't want to be on the subs bench at this stage of his career. He's an international keeper who represents his country and has never really come under serious criticism in his PL career. I can think of PL Big Six keepers who have had a lot more stick.

Thing is, he's always had that left foot, I still remember on his debut how he hit the post with a lovely dink shot. In competitive games that confidence seems to just drain away. He scored a brace two seasons ago in a proper game and then disappeared for the next 12 months. It's got so bad he's become a joke figure for underperforming wankers like Jack Grealish.

I think the level of interest will be limited as well, not because he's a bad keeper, or because of his injuries, he's not really been injury prone during his time here. If he's been out they were genuine injuries, not because he's made of tissue paper. The problem for him is his age. Clubs aren't going to want to spend good money on a 34 yr old, and he'll be on a decent wage here as well. Might actually turn out better for us, it means we can keep him here unless we get a decent fee.

Well yeah, I don't think a new keeper was top of our wanted list, but when the opportunity to buy Pope came up for £10m, it was a great chance to upgrade our first 11 without spending a ton of money. I don't think Dubravka has done a lot wrong at Newcastle, he's generally commanding in his area and he's a keeper who comes out and claims the crosses which I like. He's made the odd gaffe, but that happens to all keepers. Anyway he's 34 now so we would have needed to bring in a younger keeper in the next year or two regardless.

He's a Premier league keeper and rated highly in this league. That would be my definition of a top keeper. I don't see him as a weak link, IMO the weak links are up front where we have poor end product and maybe CM where we don't control the game for large periods of the game.

Well just a smidge yeah.

He's 34 and a top keeper, at this stage of his career I can understand he wants to be no 1. It wouldn't surprise me to see a PL club come in for him.

That's my reasoning as well, and I am a Dubravka fan who didn't see the GK position as one that even needed upgrading, certainly not a priority. But if you can get an England goalkeeper for £10m due to circumstances falling a certain way, that's just good deal making.