stozo

Are you really advocating that Thiaw should be standing off and letting Elliott turn on the edge of the 18-yard box, with him then having the option of (a) shoot or (b) play the ball left into an overload? I mean that is just now how good defending works and if you believe that I probably can’t convince you. it sucks we conceded but we were cooked the minute the middle got bypassed. Our only chance from there was a Liverpool mistake or Burn getting close enough to block the cross.

Honestly this is a bizarre take. I’ve just rewatched to make sure I was remembering right but the Liverpool player (Elliott?) gets the ball, Thiaw then engages and forces him to play the ball wide. That’s exactly what he is supposed to do, he does absolutely nothing wrong for the goal.

Absolutely not having him being at fault for the goal. Our midfield pressed high, got bypassed and then Thiaw is an impossible position as there is an absolutely gaping hole in between the lines. If he goes man to man, he would be leaving a chasm in the middle of our defence.

Kind of mental when you think about it that our net spend in this window is now £70m with more very likely to come and we’re all pretty miserable about it.

All depends on the fee. If we're talking only booking £1m-£2m PSR profit then it's not worth it. If it's double that then it's interesting. Partly this does come down to how well we are set up for the PSR system. We should have an approach where we're ready to sell any player at any moment and have a list of people we want. So, theoretically, we should know who Trippier's replacement is and any deal should involve them arriving before the end of the transfer window if we decided to sell.

I'm not saying he's not a valuable player. But if we can recognise even £4m of PSR profit on Trippier that allows us to spend £20m on the player who is potentially Livramento's competition for most of the next decade. I love what Trippier has done for us but there were times last season he got blown past by players (Marmoush against City being the worst example) and, sadly, that is going to get worse. And it's going to get worse very quickly. Unless Trippier is some kind of genetic freak we are probably looking at him being cooked in 3-24 months (he could even be cooked already...he hasn't started a competitive match since 4 May). And once he's cooked, you aren't getting a fee for him and the money for our new RB comes out of that year's headroom - meaning we can't buy other players.

Absolutely amazing that people still seem to want to completely ignore the reality of PSR. Monaco want to pay money for our 34 year old backup right back? Obviously it depends on the fee, but if it's anything remotely reasonable then you have to accept it.

He isn’t eligible for a UK work permit so won’t have been able to train with us. The challenge will be his Eredivisie loan bombed so I imagine we are trying to find someone to loan him to in the EU where (a) he’ll qualify for a work permit and (b) the league is respected enough to meaningfully help him get points towards a UK work permit. I would assume those efforts will run right to the end of the window, and then if we can’t find him a good loan then we’ll have to send him out to a less attractive league.

I should say we should absolutely pursue both Samu and Jackson at the same time. Samu ideally as the main target, but with Jackson there on the basis we have an option if Porto play hard ball and also if the deal price for Jackson falls to a level where it's a no brainer. There is a price point on Jackson (maybe around £45m?) where as long as he doesn't totally bomb here, you should be able to shift him on in a year or two without any FFP impact - effectively making it a risk free deal while we find our 'next Isak'.

Suspect they've realised that their preferred route out - Jackson to Man U, Garnacho to Chelsea - is off, and now they are desperately trying to flog him. Yesterday's media reporters screamed of Chelsea trying to stir up new bidders by saying us, Spurs and Bayern were interested - only for Bayern to immediately say they are not. I suspect the Samu news will have rattled them today as if we're not their buyer then they really have very limited options.

I think that's the fundamental problem right. Howe seems razor clear in his view that there are a very small number of players who will improve the team, and has strong views on who these people are. Which leaves a Sporting Director's job limited to negotiating deals Howe wants and then looking at academy/long-term recruitment. Hopefully that's what we'll be aiming in our next hire - but it very clearly is not the role that Paul Mitchell was brought here to do.

I mean you go on one thread and people are saying 'Why on earth are we bidding against the top teams for elite players if we can't afford them' and then you open another thread and people are saying 'Why are we bidding for players who are not the finished article, we need elite players!'.

Don't want to set off a major false alarm here but there is a plane inbound from Milan arriving in Newcastle at 16:54. It arrived in Milan earlier today from...Salzburg (where Red Bull's Global HQ is).

Didn't someone post this morning in another thread that there was an inbound plane from Milan?

Nah. If we buy Sesko and then Wissa before selling Isak, then all our leverage on getting a good few for Isak is gone as everyone knows we can’t accommodate those three together.

The club has to be completely dispassionate and financial in this. Yes, it's annoying what's happened as fan - but if Liverpool come with £150m, you have to take it. Holding on to him is not risk-free. Two obvious scenarios: Scenario 1 - his performance drops off this year and he has a few more groin niggles. Suddenly he's coming off a 13 goal season having played only 30 Prem games, and he's gone from being the world's elite striking purchase to 'only' a very promising striker coming off a meh season. Price probably then becomes stuck in the £100m-£120m range. Scenario 2 - he does his ACL next March and you can't sell him next summer. You then have to sell in Jan 2027 or summer 2027, with 18 or 12 months on his contract which will mean the fee is well under £100m. Maybe we do hang on to him for a year and get £150m next summer. But it's not the risk-free choice here.

That's nonsense. We have to sell Isak this summer or next. I've said this a few times but the club is not at a revenue level where it can afford to renew Isak. The move here is get £150m and then spend it wisely across a number of positions.

Glad this is moving. The sooner we find out if they'll pay our price or not, the sooner we can either decide he is staying or move him out and buy some new players.

Nick Pope gets bad rap on here because he can't pass - but the group of goalkeepers who are a sure thing to be better than him is a very small group. And if you are going to spend £20m+ on a goalkeeper (especially with our PSR situation) then it needs to be a sure thing. I think it's pretty obvious Trafford was the one person in the market we thought was a sure thing, and then having not been able to get that deal done, we've gone with an option that is cheaper and might give Pope some competition rather than outright replace him.

I would assume this is the first of several dominoes to fall. Presumably we’re loaning a GK rather than buying (now we can’t get Trafford), and then focusing spend elsewhere.

Has played for the U21s in pre-season. He spent the last three months of the season injured, so I presume they are getting him back up to speed with meaningful minutes with the U21s in pre-season (he did 45 mins in their last game) rather than going on tour with the senior squad and likely not playing or getting small cameos.

He’s not going to make it here but this is the grimness of PSR-ball. We renewed him on a multi-year, loan him out every year (so he’s off the wage bill) and then hope that on one of his loans he does well enough that someone stumps up £500k-£1m and we book the profit. It’ll be the same with Alex Murphy.

If it's a loan with option, you'd also presume this goes alongside shipping out Dubravka and Vlach. In which case, I think it's a smart move. Probably improves our backup goalkeeping situation and potentially Ramsdale is stiffer competition for Pope - i.e. he has some ability with his feet.

We probably don’t. Isak at £130m creates about £99m of PSR headroom this year (possibly less depending on the rumoured Sociedad sell-on clause). So while on paper it looks like you could do that much comfortably, the problems come in years 2/3/4 of those new players where to balance the books you’d need to be making another circa. £100m sale to keep funding the headroom for them. You’d hope a bit of that will be taken care of by revenue increased but in reality, you probably don’t want to back yourself into the corner/dial up the risk too high so an Isak sale is probably more like 3 good players at a total of £150m-£200m.

100% agreed. I think Wissa ends up here in the next fortnight.