Memphis

I don't know what I expected him to sound like but that interview was one of the better introductory ones I've seen from us, including the questions. I'm warming to the signing a bit more. Has a lot to prove but I'm very intrigued to see how it goes from here.

Apart from Ornstein, who is their transfers/breaking news lead, The Athletic tends to want their writers to write more detailed, nuanced pieces. They're not trying to sell daily papers, they're trying to sell long-term subscriptions. So they tend to want analysis pieces, interviews, profiles, etc. rather than strictly news stories. 

I say this with some experience as I used to write for them here in the States. It is a little different for the UK department, of course, but the overall culture is similar. The remit at the Athletic is quite different than in other places I wrote.

I'd judge them differently, as they're not trying to break news, especially on individual transfers. And they generally don't. 

Just now, GeordieDazzler said:

We can still amortise it across the contract for FFP accounting though I think 

That's correct. Doesn't matter for FFP purposes how we pay Everton, only the length of player contract matters.

1 minute ago, DanishGeordie said:

 

Didn't UEFA recently changed the rules to max. 5 years because of Chelsea?

Not yet. Supposedly will happen this summer but whatever we do now is still fine.

REMINDER - you cannot know what it means for our FFP situation without knowing the contract length.

5 year deal - 8m/yr in FFP

6 year deal - 6.7m/yr

7 year deal - 5.7m/yr

8 year deal - 5m/yr

Wait until we see the contract to know for sure. 

If he signs a 5 year contract, it's 8m of FFP cost per season. Reasonable enough for a young English player. 

I do trust Howe to get the most out of him and I'd suspect that Ashworth et al do too, that's why he's coming in.

We will sign Anthony Gordon unless we don't and he's going to be the only one in unless he isn't. 

The state of this headline...

Purely based on my interpretation of what has been said and written about this window, it seems to me that there's a mild disagreement between Howe and Ashworth/PIF about the necessity of signings this window - outside of replacing Wood, that is. 

It's a tricky dilemma because obviously finishing Top 4 would be a gamechanger for the project, but would anything realistic we do this window make a substantial difference in that pursuit? Perhaps from Ashworth's perspective, the answer is no...because outside of an obviously incredible signing, which I've no doubt we would do, it's hard to make the argument in his mind that a single player (or two) will be the difference between 4th and 5th. And until we have the certainty of improved revenues, that signing represents a higher FFP risk for us.

In the summer, everything changes. Different market, different planning, different FFP calculation due to new commercial deals coming on board.

Howe clearly wants some fresh faces. And personally, I would argue that fatigue is starting to set in and we're going to have to be careful about squad fitness. I think signings would be valuable. But it's hard even for me to make the argument that the names mentioned would make a vital difference in our league position come May.

13 minutes ago, Ben said:

Did someone say buying English players is better for FFP 

No, selling homegrown players is what's excellent for FFP. Chelsea selling Conor Gallagher would be pure FFP profit, as they developed him. So if they sold him for 40m, all of that goes back into the accounts as profit - there's no other transfer fee amortized to deal with.

FFP allows teams to amortize - or stretch out - the transfer fee over the life of the signed contract, which is why Chelsea are signing players to 7 and 8 year contracts. 80m for Mudryk divided by 8 years equals 10m per year of FFP cost. But selling Gallagher gives them an immediate 40m credit. So it's almost a cheat code allowing them to sign multiple expensive players and not have it cost against them on the FFP books, at least not this season or next.

It's fascinating to watch the other journalists feel compelled to follow whenever someone tweets out an "update" on the story...someone tweets out that the move is close, three others jump in and "confirm" they're hearing the same thing. Then something changes, and those same journalists "confirm" that, too. 

Edwards, Douglas, Jacobs all tweeting the same thing. So that means they're talking to the same source. Or one is and the others are just trying to keep up. That source is probably not us. 

All of that is to say no one knows anything about what we're doing. They have to update something for their jobs, and people salivate over all of it, but at least from our club end, there is no concrete info getting out.

At this point I have no clue whether or not we'll sign Gordon. I'm not the only one, it seems.

It's interesting - if you compare his stats to wingers (top chart), he looks pretty meh.

But if you compare him with midfielders, the numbers look a lot more promising. 

Same numbers, different frame of reference. Don't know how Eddie plans on using him but something to consider...

If we had any manager other than Howe, I'd be concerned. But while Gordon has not shown much this season, he's undoubtedly technically talented and is still very young - and has been part of a disastrous situation with a poor manager. If he can live up to his potential, there's a special player there. But he's certainly got to prove he's up for it.

Onana + Joelinton = fucking monster midfield, we'd demolish teams

Just keep in mind - 

Whenever a rumour comes out, think to yourself - 'Why did this source have this information?' Assuming it isn't just made up completely, the journalist had to get it from the selling team, the buying team, or the player. Sometimes there are logical reasons why one or more of these parties would give up information to be publicised, but more often than not in our case, there aren't any reasons to do so. 

That's why we're often dragged into other transfers, we're perceived as a rich club and we've always got money to spend, a very convenient rival for an agent or a selling team to throw out there. That makes sense as a motivator to get other teams to negotiate.

Our targets tend to be players that the selling team doesn't want to sell, and we don't want people to know about our targets. So there's little incentive for anyone to reveal anything about our possible deals until they're almost done.

Whatever happens, the journalists will probably know at the same time we do.

Gonna go out on a limb and say not a chance we sign Gordon. Feels much more like the stalking horse that LFEE mentioned. 

We tend to be very quick and decisive with these things, especially in January. Not a lot of buildup and speculation. I'd expect us to wake up one day in the next week and find that we're on the cusp of signing someone interesting. More interesting than Gordon I hope.

Born and raised in the US, you can probably guess where from my screen name, one of the few that loved soccer but was energized by the 94 World Cup here. Began to drink at that age and loved this particular brown ale from England. Was delighted to learn that there was a team that wore a shirt that had the brown ale I loved to drink on it! This was the infancy of the internet so I started learning about Newcastle United by reading and following results, and watching whatever limited video I could find. They started showing more Premier League on satellite here in the mid 90's and obviously we were very easy on the eyes at that time. Combine all those things and I was completely hooked. Early Champ Man helped me to learn about the league, the other teams, too. Had an English friend through college who brought me shirts. And I signed up here almost 20 years ago. I've also attached a picture of the groom's cake at my wedding in 2008, my wife made the badge herself.

Proud to be a supporter.

It's a bit difficult to discuss because Chris Wood is all of the following:

• helpful last season to our scrap against relegation
• not especially helpful to us this year on the pitch
• massively overvalued at 25m
• seemingly a nice guy and a hard worker
• nowhere near good enough to play routinely for us
• well-liked by his teammates and part of a successful group
• expendable

Wood had a role to play, he played it. He didn't control his own transfer fee, I don't blame him for that. But his role has changed and, well, disappeared, if all goes to plan. We should move him along with our best wishes and continue onwards.

Can we please ban any mention of Scott fucking McTominay in this thread? If by some misfortune he signs, let's open a thread for him. I don't want the beautiful possibilities of transfers from around the world tainted by having to even for a moment consider that Scott fucking McTominay might be on this wonderful team.

Heard we booked a hotel room for a week for a mystery ankle

We have come so far mentally as a team. So far. The spirit of the group is obvious and it's the main reason we won that match.

Neves would be just about the perfect January signing. Ideal fit, super talent, already acclimated to the league, don't give a shit what he said about us earlier, he would be amazing.

Btw Vitor Roque...he loves Bruno as much as we do.

It is a little tricky, I'd agree. Obviously we need to continually improve the talent at our disposal, not only with the awful reserves but also in the starting XI. Big teams and big clubs constantly push for improvement from within and without. We're a big club and we will start behaving like one, if we haven't already. We need more and better players, without question.

That said, we are indeed ahead of schedule because of our squad unity and cohesiveness. Eddie Howe has put together a team that's mentally strong and is filled with desire and determination. That process has taken time, it's organic. Introducing a new player or two into the mix could upset all of that in the short-term, putting us in a position where we have more talent but the results suffer because the communication and cohesion have dipped.

I'd argue that a player like Milinkovic-Savic would make more sense in our position right now. We need someone who's mature and mentally ready to come in and fight. We can sort out transfers for younger players as well, but if we're looking to improve our chances to make a Top 4 place our own THIS year, we need an older, calmer player to slot straight in. We've heard that Howe is pushing for players with PL experience and I think that's why. Tielemans/Maddison make sense for this reason, too. 

In the summer, all bets are off, but for now, I think it is an interesting dilemma. I'm glad we're facing it, mind.

2 minutes ago, timeEd32 said:

 

 

It is, but it's also hard to distinguish the difference between our reputation and ability to sign some of these players vs. being used as a name because we have Saudi Arabia's unlimited funds.

I think it's a distinction without a difference. Our reputation cannot grow without access to that money. It just so happens we seem to have people in place who have spent it wisely, which helps.

With that will come some sagas where we're being used to elevate prices/contracts, etc, but by and large, we are consistently linked with and have signed increasingly higher calibre players with each passing window.