TRon

You are right. Although you would also be right if you said we'd win the league if we had the best players in the world with the best coaches and facilities. It's not rocket science.

That doesn't affect his end product though, if he's playing anywhere across the front line he should be able to pick an incisive pass or hit a decent shot.

Think he'd prefer to go to West Ham all things being equal, but we can probably offer him and Man U bigger money, so he might just be persuaded. I have no problem with that, he seems like a good professional, if he comes here I reckon he'd give it everything.

The media reports I heard were saying this was still ongoing and there was a couple of directorial roles we would be looking to fill shortly, DoF and one other although it escapes what it was exactly. I think these are really important roles tbh, I would rather we did our homework and got the right one in.

Yes but that doesn't mean he's going to jump ship in the middle of the season. Might be he's agreed to come in the summer. We don't really know, but I would think for such an important position we'd want to make sure we get the right one.

Still think it might go through personally, just depends if we are prepared to wait until the end of the window. Sevilla were talking about needing to sign a replacement first so they are willing to do a deal, but it's not happening until they get someone in.

How? I doubt it's any easier appointing DoF's in the middle of a season than it is footballers at the best of times, never mind when a takeover suddenly goes through leaving everything up in the air. Well, you could appoint a crap one I suppose.

Not me tbf, I didn't rate Joselu's goal hunting instincts, but I thought he could finish when he did find himself with an opportunity. Not exactly clinical, but a lot better than Almiron.

Think he might well be here in the next couple of days tbh. Assuming he wants to come.

Is that after the final bid we put in for him this morning?

Shelvey's wage won't be the ceiling for max wage like.

Van de Beek would be coming on loan while we are in the Premier, he wouldn't even be here if we got relegated. Is playing in Man U reserves going to be better for his international career than getting first team football here?

Fair enough. Wouldn't be my choice personally but I can't argue with it, he is better than what we've got.

I barely went to any games when Pardew was here, I took my nephew to two, in one he went on a run from the halfway line beating about 5 players before planting it in the net to win it with about 10 mins to go. In the other he destroyed Stoke (admittedly with 9 men) and as far as my nephew was concerned he literally walked on water. And he isn't even a Newcastle supporter, he was brought up in Scotland.

It's fascinating stuff like, almost like there's a European embargo on dealing with NUFC under this ownership. It must be like getting messaged by Darth Vader from the Evil Empire. "They've made contact...they're coming in! Shields up defenders of Free Earth!!"

Even if we didn't you'd get at least one bit of magic which you'd be buzzing about for years later.

Is Matic still there? I mean these are all really nice players in their time, but don't we already have enough floaty type of players who aren't quite forwards or midfielders?

You should just log out and watch East Enders or something, nothing to see here since Ashley left. See ya, don't look back.

He's getting good press at the moment, so I don't want to write him off just on the back of being a big name former player. I did that to some extent with Gerrard, but tbf, he was shrewd enough to bring in really good coaches and advisors around him. Could be there's more to Rooney than meets the eye as well.

It sounds better than the reality tbf, I mean he's 34 and he's already retired once if I'm not mistaken. So life would probably mean 6 more games here, then off to the Bahamas for a couple of months before he decided to pop up somewhere in France again.

Yep. Although I think it still might happen, it would almost be a relief to move onto someone else now.

That's my opinion of him as well. I think many get duped because a) he was really good at bringing the ball out b) he's just so damn good looking In a back 4 it's just too risky IMO, especially an ageing one.

I don't know why, but I read it as Hatem Ben Arfa signs for Life.

If it's true, then we know there are only two clubs in the Premier who have money to throw around other than us, both effectively backed by small states. At least this is a form of affirmation for our scouting process, we are clearly going for top rated players.

Ah ok. I misread it then. You are basically saying the same thing, the money's not important if he'll do the business in the remainder of this season.