Elma

Agree completely. Not ideal but Wissa for 2-3 years I think would be super motivated and would fit our style of play. We'd get around 15 goals a season from him provided he stays injury free, and could then recoup maybe £20 million from Saudi when we sell him. £30m net plus wages for a player who will help keep our forward momentum and give us room to breathe while we replace Isak longer-term is OK by me, especially if we also keep Isak. We've then got a striker for the coming months and with the pressure off we can deal with Isak more calmly. If Wissa comes in and takes his mantle, scoring goals regularly, it should motivate him enough to get off the bench. If the worst happens and we fold to an improved Liverpool offer at least we've got goals in the team, AFCON-aside.

I don't think that's in his gift even if he wanted to. He'd have to declare himself available first but Eddie won't select him without any pre-season or proof that's he's giving his all. He won't feature until after the international break, provided he's still here at that point.

Bet Yasir was thrilled when his phone pinged on the bedside table at 01:20, and he had to wake up and draft that.

Flight from Nottingham due in at 17:13 bound to be Ramsey, surely?

Showing my age…

Jackson is the player I really, really don't want. Maybe Eddie would do something with him, but I've seen nothing to give me encouragement at the sort of fee Chelsea would demand.

Just catching up on the weekend's scores. Good to see that Rangers never gave that up…

Wouldn't be surprised if he misses the whole season. Botman came back quickly but 9-12 months seems to be more common.

Not that I really use it, but it popped up on my MSN insights bar this morning. Knew it would be fake....didn't take much to connect the dots to Frank

That's true but I thought it's a nominal fine. If that's the case surely that could be factored in?

For me, there are two ways forward that would be acceptable: 1) We re-integrate him back into the squad and he stays until next summer when his exit can be properly managed. Only worth it if he's willing to knuckle down and not pull a sickie every third game. 2) We work with a PIF-owned Saudi team to give him a route out, accepting a bid in the region of Liverpool's. The difference would be that we add in a decent sell-on percentage, circa 50%. That would prevent Liverpool swooping in to get him cheap next summer from said Saudi team, as they won't want to sell him cheap with a massive sell-on percentage, and even if they do then we still get a total amount in excess of £150m. Give him those two choices and let him decide.

I'm in Göztepe at the moment. I'll start negotiations.

Needed a comma.

This is live for free on TRT Sport here in Türkiye and I'm still not watching it.

Assuming that's left to right, what do you score the one on the far right?

Think you've misunderstood the amortisation bit there like. On the subject of named players, I originally had Trafford in for the keeper but obviously removed now. Just indicative values. It does exclude agents fees. How good or not they are is irrelevant for this - it's down to our scouting which generally has been excellent when we've actually got around to buying players.

I did a rough calculation on here a few days back at the £150m mark. Would get you quite a bit. Would basically cover six players (as above, including the already purchased Elanga) and their wages for three years. That assumes we started this window with a kitty of circa £105m.

So assuming that's 15% of capital gain (worst case) it would be £13 million. That would mean in my figures we'd make a nominal loss of £1m over the three year period rather than a £12m profit. Still decent (if the worst happens and he goes). As others have said, my worry would be time to recruit and being held to ransom.

I'm no expert on FFP and football finances, but maybe those who are could sense check my back of fag packet figures below? If we could get £150m for Isak, (assuming we can continue to raise revenues in the next three years to cover years four and five of any new contracts), then if he has to go at least the money would cover our entire window including salaries for the next three years cycle (with £12m spare). That's without any further sales.

I can see that too - I completely trust Eddie to mould us into a team and although I don't want to lose Isak (especially not to Liverpool), if we get a decent fee I think we could do something great with it. I'm starting to have doubts about the common sense at the top of the club mind you, and if we haven't burned our bridges I'd be asking Amanda to come back in on a consultancy basis. My main worry now is we have a hell of a start to the season and it looks like we'll be starting without full recruitment completed, players still bedding in, and others like Hall a few weeks behind schedule.

Fair point. We've obviously still got money to spend regardless so something can happen, but you'd imagine targets would change with more money in the bank.

Disappointed in Isak. However, the club is bigger than any one person and certainly bigger than him. I'd be more gutted if Howe left. We can't be offering £300k/pw without it impacting the rest of the squad so if he's not going to accept our best offer he should move on. We could keep him another year and still get a good fee but the last thing we want is him messing up the dressing room and sulking. I'd of hoped, especially now Liverpool have Ekitike, he would have got his head down and played this season whilst assessing options, especially since we are in the Champions League. Sincerely hope he doesn't go to Liverpool. Would be great if PIF could get a Saudi club to throw in a high offer in the region of £180m and then we can say, there's your way out - either go or if you want Liverpool then they have to match it. If he goes for what he should, there is a great opportunity to improve the whole squad and not be as reliant on one player. Huge opportunity despite the disappointment.

I'm assuming that if Ekitike ends up at Liverpool it won't be on a one year contract. There's no way we're selling Isak this season for anything less than a stupid amount on our terms. When I said it's a silver lining I meant that it should stop Liverpool sniffing for a while (a few years at least) whilst we get Isak onto a new contract.

Silver linings and all that....I hope we can get Ekitike but if he does end up going to Liverpool that should at least cool their interest in Isak.

If we're legitimately trying to sign Ekitike having missed out on Pedro, then we must have more money available than I thought. We know we need an RCB and ideally a midfielder and keeper, but if we strengthen all of those then it might be another few dry years in the market - spend big in a window and then keep a settled group until those purchases fall off the FFP accounting period. If it meant getting Ekitike, Gallagher and a decent RCB having got Elanga that would be an incredible window, even without a keeper. I'd happily sacrifice Willock, Longstaff and even Barnes for that as a front three of Ekitike, Isak and Elanga could interchange in game, and with Gordon and Murphy as back up, you could rest Isak more with Ekitike there. With Willock favoured further forward (where we have cover with Gordon and Joelinton) and having not recaptured his form of 22/23, I'd rather have one (Gallagher) who would join the first choice pool, rather than two (Willock/Longstaff) who represent a significant drop in quality. If only we still had Anderson too (sigh). In summary, if we can get the above in, I'd happily ship out Willock, Longstaff, Targett and, slightly reluctantly, Barnes to help offset the costs and then not spend (without sales) for a year or two.