stozo

Who is going to Al Nassr and will presumably be paid somewhere north of £250k pw. So a total non-starter.

If you can give me five players who are 100% going to be better than Schär and Botman, are under 26, available for under <£70m and willing to move to a club with no European football then I’d be impressed. Point being that the elite CB pool is very thin. And I don’t think it takes a genius to read the tea leaves of the window and work out the Malick Thiaw probably decided he wasn’t willing to come and liked his chances better playing CL football with Milan.

I suspect today was tactical. Our back line today massively lacked pace, and if Bournemouth had successfully bypassed our press we’d have been hugely exposed with their front 4.

It’s less than 12 months since Burn played game of his life against PSG! I get why Burn became a target for fan disgruntlement during our rough patch last season but when Botman is back, he’s a very solid option at LB in certain games.

A poorer defender as well as athlete. The cross he headed out for a corner today was a near disaster for him in my eyes. He’d completely lost track of Semenyo who had got in front of him and it was pure chance the ball went over Semenyo’s head and fell to Hall. On another day the cross is perfect, the ball heads up in the net and everyone is wondering why Hall is half asleep. I do like Hall a lot and think he has huge potential but this season is going to be a tough one where we’ll probably need to juggle Hall, Kelly and Burn based on a variety of factors.

His ‘I’ve said what I want, but it’s out of my hands’ line that has been used recently is definitely a shift in tone from the Staveley & Ashworth era. I suspect if this coming week goes wrong and Howe doesn’t get what he wants, there will be fall out sadly.

He won't be going on loan anywhere. Someone is either going to need to pay the fee that gives us the PSR space to buy a replacement or he's going to spend the year competing with Murphy for our RW spot.

Presume the calculation re: PSR though is that Charlotte need to bid far enough over that £3.5m to allow us to buy someone along the lines on Madueke. So if Madueke is going to cost £30m over 5 years then the magic number is somewhere in the region of £10m for Almiron. So effectively we're looking at Charlotte doubling their club transfer record. Will be interesting to see if it happens.

Will be interesting to see if we get outbounds sorted before inbounds. You would assume that our budget is very different if we sell Trippier, Almiron, Wilson etc. Vs. if we don't do that. Shifting those three opens up circa. £35m of allowable spend a.k.a potentially three £50m players.

In terms of offering Gordon up, I suspect what actually happened was we ran a professional process. We knew Minteh and Anderson were our most likely sales, but had conversations with other clubs about Gordon, Isak etc. so that we understood our backup options in the event our preferred options fell through.

Saudi transfer window doesn’t open until 17 July so that’s a no-go.

I don’t love Calvert-Lewin but this makes total sense if we’re also buying a young European striker. If we get the Euro striker wrong, Isak gets injured and we don’t have a proven backup then it’s a disaster. Hopefully the Euro striker works out and DCL is little used but got to guard against the downside risk.

Newcastle Specific Player of the Season: Alexander Isak Young player of the season (21 or lower): Lewis Miley Season to forget: Sven Botman - extremely harsh in many ways but a bitterly disappointing season for him after a wonderful 22/23 Most Improved: Year on year, Jacob Murphy. In-season, Lewis Hall. Unsung Hero: Fabian Schar - held (barely) things together in our back line for long stretches of the season Signing of the Season: Tino Livramento Goal of the season: Joelinton v Milan Moment of the season: Hard one - Barnes winner v West Ham or absolute pride of hearing the CL music at the start of Milan away & PSG home. Low point of the season: Chelsea's equaliser and then subsequent penalty victory in the League Cup Quarter Final Manager rating (Out of 10): 8 - Eddie Howe has been brilliant and his record here gets him a one season pass on 'underperformance' due to injuries. Premier League Specific Player of the Season: Foden Young player of the season (21 or lower): Mainoo (Palmer is 22) Manager of the Season: Unai Emery Season to forget: Brentford (Man U were bad but Brentford were just completely forgettable this year)

Capital investment strategy a.k.a redevelopment of St James' Park.

If that happens, then it screams it's going to be a really tough Summer from a FFP point of view. No way we keep both of them if we have headroom to spend.

It's all a bit of guesswork but given we didn't feel the need to sell players in January when bids came in, it's probably fair to assume we are confident of passing FFP/PSR in the 23/24 season. With under 2 months left of the financial period, we now likely have a very good view of how much headroom we have. And assuming we have headroom, it probably makes sense to bring forward a couple of million (circa. £2.5m assuming he's on £50k pw) in cost into the 23/24 financial year which in turn provides more headroom for the 24/25 financial year.

I think even the training facilities is understandable. It's pretty obvious they are exploring options around SJP expansion, which given the restrictions we know about will probably require engineering solutions that are unorthodox at best and potentially even world-first. Until you've made a decision on SJP or new stadium, you can't really do the training ground - as I think it's a fair assumption that if we move to a new stadium it'll be to a City-style facility with stadium, academy stadium and training ground on a single site. Once the SJP decision is made, I think it's pretty certain we'll see everything fall into place quite quickly.

This was the most egregious example - but felt there were a number of similar instances where he was more focused on showboating etc. than doing the simple thing that would have helped Milan.

I left the two CL games against them thinking he was exactly the kind of player we don't need. A massive talent but very little graft and seemed more focused on creating a personal highlight reel of special moments rather than consistently providing end product to help his teammates.

Given the Joelinton injury, I wonder if we'll see Hall in midfield here as they try to figure out if he's a feasible option there before the end of the window.

I don’t really care what he does. He needs to protect his mental well-being during this period of not playing, and then get himself in top physical condition for his return in the Summer.

Would love to see over the season if the 4-2-3-1 that was tried in the second half last night works as an alternative formation for us. Sadly I suspect its success hinges on having two good passing midfielders - and with Tonali about to be out, that may well spell an end to it.

Yes. There seems to be a lot of people (and some weird Italian press rumours) saying we won't pay him. But unless Tonali is waiving his right to be paid out of remarkable generosity, I highly doubt there is any way we won't be paying him. Contractually we are on the hook unless we take disciplinary action to sack him for gross misconduct. And from everything Howe has said, I can't imagine that 'doing everything to support him' involves trying to deprive him of his salary.

The Italian FA hold Sandro Tonali's registration via his nationality. And the general agreement between the FAs of Europe is that they recognise each other bans, especially in relation to issues like this.

Kind of insane that most people would probably say we've not seen the best of Isak so far this season, yet he has scored 6 goals in the PL and is the joint second top scorer in the league.