STM

The answer will always lie with what we do with the money. West Ham sold Rice and with that money signed Kudus, among others, who will probably fetch them similar money as to what they got for Rice. Mind, you don't want to keep doing it, at some point you want to turn it into silverware but if you are smart, it can work in your favour.

One of my biggest annoyances around this is the "you won't be able to replace him for 100m". Which is often said by people who, let's be honest, had probably never heard of Bruno in the first case, who we signed for 40m. It's not easy, by any means but that's why you make sure your scouting team is on the ball. It's also not 100m, it's a complete reshaping of our financial situation. It doesn't wipe the slate clean but it would be very much "we go again" in terms of a big push forward. Its not my preference. I hope he stays but that's football: Coutinho, Sterling, Ronaldo, Bale, Kane, Van Persie. Sometimes it happens. 100m is not to be sniffed at.

I love Bruno but gone are the days when I'm going to get emotionally attached. Players have come and gone. We need to think solely about the quickest route to silverware. Route 1: With Bruno, a world class midfielder Route 2: 100m in the bank, which equates to much more in FFP terms and the possibility of signing 2/3 future stars. Neither are terrible. I prefer Route 1.

I'm not gonna sit here and debate this with you, but if you look at Man Uniteds squad and would swap it for ours, you are off your head.

Man City or Real. PSG would be a backwards career move because he will win a French league, a French cup and get a bigger salary, that's it. Arsenal would be a step up the ladder for sure, but enough of a step for him to uproot? This would be my biggest worry. The rest, he's much better than.

They don't have a better squad than us.

Sounds like we've actually thought through his release clause.

Worst part of the night is them singing championship songs.

He was pulled back. It was a pen. What's not to understand?

My biggest criticism. Why isn't Tino on the pitch?

Not watched much footy recently?

Because he didn't..

Why would he dive man. He was pulled back.

Formation hasn't worked... largely because Murphy and Krafth are of such poor quality that we are a worse side. Sometimes just playing your best players is the best strategy.

Longstaff has been much better in the last couple of games IMO.

It hasn't even been raining man. That's the worst thing.

This isn't safe to play on.

We are almost certainly getting 10m+ for Ashworth leaving, which correct me if I'm wrong also adds to our PSR kitty. We are also building a youth setup where we can start to see some loan fees coming into the equation. Put it this way, if Minteh heads back out on loan, I'd expect a couple of million heading our way. Every little helps in that regard.

We've paid over 40m for a player in every transfer window we have been involved in (apart from January gone). In the scenario I outlined above, I could easily see: 50m for Diomande Kelly for free 50m for a RW/Striker If we recoup 30/40m for the 3 I mentioned above, that's more than doable.

I've said this before, but it's worth reiterating... Every transfer window in which we have spent money, we have been way more ambitious than what I would have been. In the relegation zone: We signed Bruno and Trippier Following summer: Beat AC Milan to Botman and signed one of most highly rated young strikers in Europe in Isak. Following Summer: Took AC Milans future captain off them (ok, I know, I know). The point is, sometimes we are guilty of a lack of imagination. IF we have money to spend, we tend to go after real quality.

If wouldn't surprise you if Chelsea win 6 games in a row, despite never looking like doing that all season? Stiffy, this is one of those worried Newcastle fan posts, where you imagine the worst case scenario and run with it. TBF, I did it during the run last season. Newcastle will 100% drop points, possibly tonight, but we are better placed to pick ourselves up. Even if we lose against Palace, we couldn't have a better fixture than SU to recover. I'd be surprised if we don't get 3 wins, which will be enough IMO.

If he's close. It's much more likely that he waits until Sheffield U at home.

Well you can speculate all you want on FFP but the reality is that alot of us simply don't know where we stand. The club have talked about us being at our FFP limit since the day they walked through the door, in order to dampen expectations and of course to give them some bargaining power. Of course, you can look at recent figures and take a good guess but does that take into account our new sponsorship/shirt deals? As you say, we may sell players too. I can easily see a scenario where we sell Miggy, Wilson and Targett, we'd get somewhere around 30/40m for them 3 and although I have limited understanding of amortisation, that's not an insignificant number. The one thing I'm certain of, is that the club will at least sign 2/3 quality players to improve the squad. Edit: I'm also fairly convinced that we COULD have done one deal in January but decided against it, because it made more sense to wait until the summer and because we were limited in what we could do. In short, I'm sure we can find 100m to improve the squad with 2/3 players.

80m euros is 68 million pounds, which is more than what we paid for Isak, therefore I'd be highly surprised if we went to that figure. However, that's the high end of what they want. We've showed that we are capable of paying 50m+ for players we rate. Nothing to say we wouldn't do it again.... in theory.