KaKa

Is it bad that the Hope tweet actually makes me feel less confident?

Yeah, there was the tweet the other day that did say Brentford would be open to lowering the fee if the bulk of the money was paid upfront, and so I'm guessing we're trying to figure that out with them.

Yeah ... strong possibility it plays out that way.

Talks are ongoing and so we must have done something right I suppose. Forest seemed to piss them off and things broke down completely. The problem here is you just know Levy is waiting for us to do all the work and agree a deal before matching the bid and getting him

£25 million was already bid by Forest! I'm hoping we offered that all up front or something different, and didn't just send in the same bid

Yeah, it won't be anywhere near as big a difference

"Spurs also keen and in talks ... "

Exactly! Yeah, the rules are different, but ultimately it's the fact that they have more of their money to play with! I guess perhaps the difference maybe isn't anywhere near as significant as in the States though.

It's not the most exciting, however ... it's crazy to think that if we end up with Elanga and Wissa, that would be two players that between them had 40 goal contributions in the league last season.

It's definitely a thing in US sports.

Um ... it's seen as a factor in US sports when players are able to move to teams in states where the taxes are lower. Actually gets mentioned a lot!

Do players not take into account the cost of living when moving out of a London to a Newcastle? I actually never seen this mentioned as a plus or pulling factor for clubs in parts of the country that are not as expensive to live in.

Surprised they don't just hand the guy a card that accesses a bank account that never runs dry

I think mostly Newcastle and the top 4 matches tend to be watched by folks, and so these sorts of players go under the radar. It was actually quite shocking how good he was last year. There was some Brazilian striker they bought from Belgium to replace Toney, that got injured early on, and so Wissa was moved upfront from that left side, and it showed a whole other dimension to his game.

Oh my God ... that is mental.

Seems to have his heart set on Bayern. Think he'll try his utmost to get a move there.

I see all these papers have run with those false agent quotes. Top rate journalism as usual. What a joke man.

Yeah, absolutely. All they have to do now is show that they are ready and able to pivot. If so, we'll be good to go.

Wouldn't be surprised if Man City are after both. Will be up to Trafford to decide if he wants to be second fiddle long term over there. He apparently has desires on being England's number 1, and so that won't be great for him.

Such a good shout. He would absolutely be a prime candidate to go over to Saudi and this really is something we need to start factoring in more. If he joins and performs at a similar level as he has at Brentford, and gets more visibility, especially with us being in the Champions League, we'd likely be able to get decent money for him from Saudi still once he hits age 32 or so.

Hopefully the first part of this window has been an eye opener for Howe. Going through this may not be the worst thing long term, if it allows him to see that some adjustments need to be made to our approach. And those adjustments will need to be made over the next few weeks, because if we end up not getting players in because we kept on with the same strategy, that would be so impossibly negligent and incompetent, I genuinely cannot even envision it to be honest.

Better scouting and recruitment from other markets allows for lower transfer fees and wages. Steve Nickson is very experienced and has shown that he has a good knowledge of players across Europe and even South America. If we are not able to pay transfer fees and match wages for priority targets due to the competition, we have to lean on Nickson and his team. If come the end of the window we have failed to do this and end up short, then the club will deserve all the flak that comes their way. It will also be a terrible look for Howe in particular, and he will have invited a lot of pressure on himself. All this complaining about the cartel clubs isn't going to be acceptable for me. The club is attractive enough to get players good enough to compete, if we widen our scope for player recruitment. Let's see if they make that pivot as the next step now.