TRon

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.

Except we could be relegated by then.

The other club are snoozing as well tbf, they've put in the same bid as the one we had rejected.

Are you factoring in all the players we are buying seem to be around 30 yrs old? I know it means nothing to our owners, but if we spend £100m on players which just gets wrote off in a couple of years, doesn't that come back to bite us on the arse when FFP rules are applied?

I think we'll either come to an agreement over the next 24hrs over Carlos or move on tbh. He's going to be 29 in March, if Sevilla think they will get £42m from anyone else they are deluded. They are getting a good offer from us, if they don't want to sell and are happy to keep operating in the red, well they know how to run clubs in Spain better than we do. Maybe losing money year in year out works out ok over there.

No. The only reason we never heard anything about previous transfers is because we hardly done any. No one gave a shit who Newcastle were interested in.

I'll be surprised if we don't throw everything at avoiding relegation over the next couple of weeks, there's still 12 days before the window closes. We'll move on to lesser targets if Sevilla refuse to budge, but I think there's a limit to what we'll pay for a 28 year old CB, and I think Sevilla are just pushing for the best price possible.

Negotiating the best price, yes they have. PL have moved the goalposts since the days City just bought everybody, we have to keep the future in mind as well because we know fine well that FFP rules will be enforced strongly against NUFC down the line.

Do you really think clubs would be asking any less if she hadn't said it? Everyone knows we are the richest club in the world, and everyone knows we aren't going to cheap out when it comes to signing players. You are taking one offhand comment and blowing out of all proportion tbh.

They won't, but could be that Lingard quite fancies moving here tbh. He's never quite made it at Man U, he might see this as a new start of an exciting project, and a way to get back to the top. He's 29 now, like Trippier, this could be his last big pay day.

Before the Leeds game. Point is, we aren't going to switch to lower grade players to target a couple of games, no matter how life and death they might seem. We've got the rest of this window to try and get the right ones in. Everything can change in the space of 10 days, we have to keep our nerve.

I mean we were paying 40k a week to Steven Taylor a decade ago, so it's not really that outrageous to be paying a PL striker 80k in today's terms.

It's still January, we've got one more game left before the window closes, and we'll have another 17 after that. Getting the right players might make more difference over the rest of the season than buying anyone who we can get within 4 days.

Money isn't the only thing, but it's important. If he's prepared to stay at Sevilla earning less than 70% of what he can earn at Newcastle then congratulations, you will have proved your point. But I think you will be selling him anyway in the summer, if not to us, then someone else. As far as I know Sevilla can't really afford to start doubling wages, Spanish clubs are not doing so well by following this policy.

I think some fans just have real trouble digesting that tbh.

I'm sure they'd love to, but Lingard himself would probably prefer to come here. They have to be reasonable otherwise he's quite happy to sit on his arse and run his contract down.

That's because they don't want to sell unless they get a stupidly high amount. We are agreeing terms with the player to unsettle him and put pressure on them to be reasonable and agree a fair fee. It's called negotiation.

Well even if they are the best players in the world, there's nothing to say they will settle into English football in the first game. You can't guarantee they are going to lock out a clean sheet no matter how good they are.

Can't really argue with that at the end of the day. All of them are taking up precious attacking slots and producing in maybe one game in five. If that.

Yeah the only thing which could work in our favour is if he actually is keen on coming here.