Yorkie

Interesting that he's about - it's often an indicator that something's going on. Funny to think, despite the anxiety atm around: form, the manager's future (ridiculous), and possibly departing players... we're potentially a week or so away from: being in the fifth round of the cup, 4/6 points better off in the league, all key players retained, and having strengthened in the transfer market. Its not implausible.

Been burned by incredibly painful departures far too many times to be convinced just yet, but that's really encouraging. Trippier is a gem and it would be lovely if we could just bloody well keep him.

If Trippier does stay then, tbh, he's an even bigger legend than he already is. Not to 'smallclub-ify' us, but we're still very much in a transitional phase with only slim chances of honours; whereas Bayern are true giants with legitimate hopes of the biggest prizes. If he was itching to go then he'd go, so if he's empowered us to reject competitive offers then massive props to him; it would be fantastic to see that amount of loyalty. Hopefully a bit of a turning point on the pitch too and the fans give him a lot of love in the Luton game.

Not in the slightest.We have an abundance of leaders; there's five in the leadership group so Burn, Wilson and Ritchie would remain. Ideally we wouldn't lose the captain and vice in one fell swoop but leadership certainly isn't something we lack. The dressing room is full of brilliant characters even beyond that lot.

Going to be an immense loss. Fucking sigh.

Oh right. Banter.

£17m!? City's academy is a money printer.

€15m is £12.83m just by the by; so up on what we allegedly paid.

kk. Thanks for being the guinea pig. It's good news really because I was ready to hoover up all of the latest additions.

So is that a no-recommend or is your body the problem?

To give credit where it's due I thought Pod on the Tyne's post-Mackems podcast was really good; overlaying The Prodigy over the radio comms was a nice touch. But obviously agree that it's otherwise quite painful to listen to, and George Caulkin being a bit of a whopper continues to be a huge shame. On the rare occasions he's not playing either the weird curmudgeon role or being overly sentimental about something, he's insightful and even quite witty. Why he lowers himself to the 'ya dad' craic is beyond me. Pains me to say but, having defaulted to it as my NUFC pod of choice; True Faith is the best, but it still isn't great. I don't like Alex Hurst for reasons previously discussed but tend to think he speaks well most of the time. No issue with Charlotte and I think Si is generally always spot on. They did have Michael Martin on the last one to spend ten minutes mansplaining the Leeds/Portsmouth/FFP conundrum, mind, which was as tedious as it sounds. What I will say though - in everyone's defence - is that making a podcast is hard work; or at least it's hard work to make one that's good. Having microphones pointing at a conversation is one thing; but crafting 45 mins of truly listenable content is another. I dabbled with it once and I know @Darth Crooks gave it a really good go, and I found it took a gargantuan amount of thought and time to try and come up with something decent.

What's the craic with Leverkusen anyway? Is Xabi Alonso absolutely mint or something?

Not as a like-for-like swap; just as an addition to our raft of versatile attacking players.

I think the thing I care most about is that Trippier wants to be here. I wouldn't begrudge him wanting to finish his career in Munich, but I'd still be gutted if he decided NUFC wasn't for him any more. If he wants to go then I think we should accept an offer, even if it's close to the low fee we initially paid. But if he wants to stay then I really hope we keep him and just take the 'hit' on him leaving for nothing later down the line. It's difficult to know what the club's stance on it is. Half of me believes we think he's too critical to sell; the other half of me believes we're keen to recoup cash for ageing players and we're just trying to get the price up.

As someone who barely watches anything other than English football, Gibbs-White has been near the top of my own personal most wanted list for a while. Think he'd fit into our system like a glove, plus he does set pieces and pennos.

The only time we did that was Gordon this time last year and he's turned out brilliantly. Then in the summer we paid an admittedly substantial amount on strengthening full-back, centre midfield and the wings. But there was no 'all eggs in one basket,' we bought three quality players.

What lesson? Sign young English talent cos they turn out to be absolutely class? Gibbs-White is really good and can play across the front three. Would be a brilliant signing.

12

I think we can squeeze more than £11million out of someone, given his quality, but no one's paying 23-year-old prices for a 33-year-old. If we had no intention of recouping funds for our ageing squad members and the player wasn't interested in the move, we'd be in a far stronger bargaining position. Unfortunately I think the opposite is probably true re both of those aspects.

I agree that he's absolutely indispensable to us; I just can't imagine there's anyone out there willing to pay 'most productive RB in the league' prices, due to his age. If we want to sell our 30-somethings then I'd say it's more about what someone is willing to pay.

I'm not really surprised by the rumours of the low fee. He was signed for a low fee in the first place and is now two years older so I don't think we're in a particularly strong bargaining position. Of course, if we'd paid £50million it would've been canny value given everything he's brought to us, but when it's a question of getting something now - as opposed to nothing later - recouping what we paid wouldn't be terrible business, especially if he's interested in the move.

Can someone remind me how Sesko's appearance in Newcastle with his agent was explained away? Can't remember if it was summer or last January.

Just re Murphy again, haven't rigorously fact-checked but by my reckoning, of all the games he's started this season and last, our record is: W13 - D2 - L3.

The last time Murphy started a PL game he scored and got two assists. The opposition were poor that day but he is absolutely capable of starting games at this level; he has done loads of times and been an asset. I don't think it would be the end of the world if we're relying on him at starting RW until the end of the season; he's got the pace, energy and discipline to efficiently keep the seat warm before upgrading meaningfully in the summer.

Get outta here.