TRon

Trippier, Willock and Miley? Miggy as well if you wanted to include him (which I don't personally). That said, other than Joelinton, I agree with keeping the same side mostly, this team should be itching to put things right. I said last week this would be Howe's approach.

Still fatigued a week later?

Howe's gone more or less for the same side that got battered last week. Probably giving them the chance to put things right against a shit team.

Burn getting the nod over Botman then.

Yes, and they do it by keeping a healthy wage to revenue ratio like you said. To do that they need to keep selling players who are doing well, and replace them with cheaper versions who they hope will do the same thing. As you agree, they are a traditionally smaller club so for them that model is perfect. Is that one we should be expected to follow though?

I think Eddie really wanted him otherwise it would never have dragged on that long.

I said it was a better run version though. Brighton don't have any ambitions to win anything, their aim seems to be buy low sell high. Nothing wrong with that either for a traditionally smaller club.

We were never going to sign Guehi for £70m. We reportedly went up to £55m before pulling out. Presumably he was a player Howe wanted as part of his long term plan, so I imagine the idea would be to then sell someone by next summer who wasn't part of our long term plans.

Brighton are just a better run version of Mike Ashley's Newcastle. It seems that is what PSR is aiming for other than the established cartel clubs.

Yeah can't really blame the players or the club tbh, the contracts have to be honoured. But it is costing us players down the line ultimately, again a roadblock placed on us by PSR when there was no need for it in our case. We have the money to keep the players and buy new ones.

The irony that it was brought in to stop clubs using owners money to bankroll squad building, then City are the club who sign him.

They had deals lined up for Miggy and Vlachy to go to Saudi, not much they can do if players don't want to go.

Yes I can understand why they don't want to change the rules, but the rules shouldn't be there in the first place. It's restriction of trade. We had no such rules when Ashley didn't want to spend any money, Chelsea, Man City et al were quite free to do so.

That's fine if they don't want to, but why should that mean other owners can't if they have the funds? I'm sure Sir Jim Ratshit is probably over the moon that PSR is making him cut costs and increase prices, but as long as that's Man U's problem that's fine. It's when the cartel start trying to poke their nose in other teams business that it starts to grate.

That's just due to their own mismanagement though. Nowt to stop them putting in their own money to cover the losses they incurred due to their own stupidity. Apart from PSR of course.

Said the same thing many times on here. I wonder if PIF had realised how many obstacles would be thrown in their way, would they still have pushed to buy the club so hard? I always thought for them to be truly invested they would want to win stuff, but this FFP/PSR stuff means it would need some pretty miraculous moves and a fair chunk of luck to get everything lined up.

The real test of Newcastle's value would be if there were interested buyers. Considering how long Ashley had us up for sale at around £300m I would suggest there wouldn't be a huge rush. PIF have inflated the value of the club a long way, but to push it higher now would probably need a lot of investment in infrastructure, and I just don't see anyone out there who would want to take that on, although I am not a money man so could be totally off the mark.

An alternative system would be, any clubs objecting to us spending money on a player, put it in writing, then they all contribute funds equal to that amount to the PL coffers so the money we would have put in isn't lost to the game, and that way it keeps getting circulated in a healthy manner. Obviously we would need to be compensated for the player we have lost so maybe they should double their contributions so we can get reimbursed as well for our losses.

Yeah it's not City screwing us over, it's the PL stopping us from buying the same player when he was happy to come. His agent literally said it was because of PSR we couldn't do the deal.

I've yet to see anyone suggest a different owner who would be trustworthy enough to be more aggressive. I suppose Boehly is the obvious comparison, but what are his plans exactly? I don't think he's a Chelsea fan who has bought in because he loves the club, pretty sure he's hoping to make a lot of money off the back of it. But Chelsea did benefit from having gazillions pumped into their coffers by the Russian, so not sure we can emulate them anyway.

It was a sad day when she left, she was, like Eddie, a great ambassador for the club. But there was nothing she could do about PSR, and she couldn't continue to spend big money without PSR kicking the club in the nuts so she was on borrowed time anyway. It is a pointlessly negative slant by Baldwards as from that point there was basically not much anyone could do differently as far as spending big was concerned.

I was replying to your description that he has a canny left foot. I don't think he does. Even if you want to go by the description of cultured/uncultured, if he had a good left foot, he'd be a much better crosser. His assist record is abysmal as far as I know. Even given he plays on the right, he could still swing in a cross like Gordon does by cutting back inside to make room.

How much would anyone invest when they know the path to becoming a big hitter is blocked? IMO if PIF can't do it, no one else will.

I do wonder if our owners have lost a little bit of interest now it's become clear our way to the top is going to be blocked using any means possible. But that's just not easy to verify one way or the other thanks to the dilligence the PL is applying to protecting the cartel. You make one step forward then you have to take two steps back, like selling your most promising young talent to balance books which don't need balancing.

Which is why I'm not particularly fussed if we are taking some time over those type of sponsorships. We need the game changers which will make the PSR cartel spit their cornflakes out.