stozo

He'll end up here next summer for £30m and City will book an £18m FFP profit.

We can choose not to give them what they want but it would be cutting off our nose to spite our face. We aren't Liverpool/Chelsea/Man U right now. We don't have comparable commercial revenues and we don't have a flow of U21 academy players we can sell for high fees. It sucks but until those two things change, we are always going to be vulnerable when a player decides they want to leave. We absolutely could tell them to fuck off and then we'd be totally fucked next summer when we hit the PSR wall again.

He's worth what Liverpool are willing to pay. The problem here is Isak, not us. Isak cut away our negotiating leverage. You could argue we may have got £135m if we'd said a month ago 'Here's our price, we're willing to sell, Liverpool come and pay it' but that would have resulted in Isak going pre-Woltemade.

I don't think he'd have gone on strike, but are playing him or Woltemade up front every week? To maintain Isak's value, he must be number 1 - which means Woltemade is effectively a backup, which is obviously not what we have bought him for.

Look at Villa. They've hit a PSR wall and they are dead this season. We've sold probably the best young winger in the league to Brighton plus an England international midfielder to Forest because we hit a PSR wall. If we want summers like this one with 4+ quality incoming purchases, we have to maximise our player sales. You can do that by selling a lot of players or by selling one very expensive player. We can all hate Isak but the reality is today is our last chance to cash maximum value on him. Not selling today would have been a massive gamble on him maintaining his value, and if he lost value then it limits our ability to buy players in future windows.

It’s just the same as this window. This window we’ve operated largely restriction free because of a circa. £40m PSR profit on Almiron, Kelly and Longstaff. The Isak sale probably gives us another two summers where we could buy four quality players (e.g. Elanga, Thiaw, Ramsey and Woltemade) without needing to make major sales.

Let’s see where we are at the end of the day. I suspect we’lll but Wissa or get someone on loan.

Isak may have forgone bonuses, his agent may have have forgone fees or Isak/his agent may have just straight up paid us the extra £5m to make it happen.

Annoyingly practical approach taken by the club but looks like it’s £130m in the bank and we now have huge FFP headroom in future windows.

Not 100% clear but looks like in the period where Chelsea blocked the Jackson loan, Bayern have got themselves seemingly close on Lookman from Atalanta instead.

His move to Bayern has just collapsed. While at the same time Chelsea have recalled Guiu from Sunderland. So presumably Jackson is either coming here or Villa are spending the Martinez money on him.

Can’t recall ever seeing him play but our recruitment has been so good in recent years that I’m of the view that anyone who gets the approval of Howe and Nickson is good enough for me.

Loan with option here would be very smart business assuming Strand Larsen or Wissa can’t get done. Gives us cover up front but without comprising our FFP windfall from an Isak sale.

A fair position. Isak has fucked us but £130m buys us FFP freedom for the next few years. Huge risk if we don’t deal that Isak’s value plummets in coming windows. Fucking sucks if there is no replacement but you’d rather not scupper your FFP freedom by buying Wissa who is 29 is two days for £60m.

Yep, thought today would be a big day of movement. Given how leaky the Isak, Wissa and Strand Larsen sagas have been I’m minded to think were either deadlocked or working on another secret deal.

Having gone into the day thinking Isak to Liverpool and Stand Larsen to Newcastle was the way things would play out, I'm now starting to think Isak is staying. Maybe everything is moving behind-closed-doors but feels like Isak to Liverpool has played out in the media, and if there hasn't been a bid today then the actual practicalities of agreeing a British transfer record fee (What's the total fee? How are payments phased? How much in add-ons?) is leaving a lot to do in 24 hours.

Agree on not signing enough. We weren’t particularly close to going up last year and the signings so far have been pretty meh. Nobbs and Gautrat aside we’ve signed players who are either from teams who finished below us or are unproven from WSL/abroad. You look at the lineup from today and it’s a lot of familiar faces from last season.

I think the problem last night was everything was coming down our right and in lieu of opportunities opening up for him/us, Elanga started trying to force it. To be fair to him though, it wasn't just him doing that - I think Schar had a couple of balls too where he was really trying to play extremely difficult passes to open Leeds up and just didn't get them right.

I have some sympathy in the sense that I suspect Wissa will be the real loser from this saga. Isak to Liverpool, Strand Larsen to us and Wissa stays at Brentford and very likely never gets his wish of Champions League football.

There are going to be very few smart deals to make in the next 48 hours. Get our striker, sell Isak and then work out how we use the PSR headroom wisely over the next 12 months.

Saved the game the end with great positioning to block the Harrison cross. Not a standout performance but solid. He’s going to get a lot of minutes this year and hopefully we’ll see him really progress.

Farewell, sweet prince - https://www.newcastleunited.com/en/news/garang-kuol-joins-sparta-prague.

I mean I guess the lad can choose whatever number he wants, but with #9 being currently vacant and it being our iconic striker shirt, you would think our club record signing would take it. Ho Hum.

Eddie Howe famously loves wingers who have zero defensive work ethic. Can't think of a player less likely to suit him than Leão.

If there is a chance of him leaving City, we should be back in. Ramsdale being on board is a big complication but if there is a chance for us to lock in the number 1 for the next decade, we should take it.