Chris_R

Despite his injuries I think he's generally been brilliant for us over the years, in lean times and in good. However it seemed to look at the back end of last season that his legs had gone, if that's the case then there really isn't a decision to be made. Could turn out that he just wasn't match sharp though, so I'd trust the club to run the metrics to find out one way or the other.

Not every club is going to want to or be able to take a punt on a youngster costing 30m. That this is what the selling club demanded indicates he at least not terrible. Feels like exactly what they should be doing in terms of age and likely ability if they want to give themselves a chance. Thing is though they've sold Bellingham and bought this chap, feels like for like, so really they've probably just stood still which likely won't be enough. Doesn't make him a bad signing though.

They're doing the right things to give themselves a chance, so fair play.

Everyone's problem last season was that he was playing at left back, where he clearly wasn't that great. I was infuriated seeing him play there week after week, but that was nothing against him as a person or indeed as a centre back where he's always looked great.

We'd have said that about Clark when he was playing too. But not just Premier League players are involved here so where do we draw the line? "It makes sense to run your contract down in the Championship to maximise your pay, but not in the Prem"? Doesn't make any sense. Then what about Ligue 1? La Liga? Eredivisie? What about if a Sunderland player's contract runs out between promotion and relegation again, do they count as Championship or PL? Then you get to not all teams being the same size in each league, so a league rule makes no sense anyway. Plus not all players at any team get the same pay. Basically, you can't draw a line within a continuum without looking silly, especially when the teams making up that continuum aren't static themselves within it. Even pointing out individuals who will 'definitely' be OK like TAA, aside from that being ridiculous as shown above, well why should they have to leave tens of millions on the table out of some altruistic idealism, ceding a massive portion of their value to a multi billion pound corporation? Fuck that.

I'm certainly not slagging him off, quite the reverse he's being really clever about how he answers questions. I'm just saying what he's said can't be taken the way some are trying to take it. He's being asked "are you happy here?", and is replying "yes I'm happy here". That tells us nothing. What else could be possibly say? In what world does he say "no"?

Why not? Are you generally in favour of corporations making money over individual employees? Personally I'd rather see a massive redistribution of wealth across the world, from corporations to the employees themselves. This is what Trent did, and what I'd do as a player too. I'm surprised all players don't do it. Why as a player should someone else get £100m for me, am I an object? How can a human being be bought? On the flip side, if Newcastle bought players who left for nothing I'd be a little disappointed because that negatively impacts my team's ability to then reinvest in transfers, but that's me as a football fan supporting an individual team and I can compartmentalise that against the human angle where I'm in favour of anyone, hell everyone, walking away at the end of their contract to maximise their pay. It's not like footballers are absolutely guaranteed to be set for life, see the Lee Clark thread. And that's a man who has had 15+ years of employment AFTER retiring from football.

Without seeing the question he was asked and the wider conversation it was part of, no that also tells us nothing. People are often selectively quoted, entirely misquoted, or fed leading questions. If the question was "Do you want to be here in the future?", which makes sense because it looks like it was at least a variant of that based on the start of his answer, then what follows is meaningless because the only alternative answer is "No I don't want to be here in the future" and absolutely no player (with a functioning brain) is ever going to say that. If he was just chatting generally and said how much he was looking forward to signing a new contract without being asked anything, that would have value. This doesn't because there isn't an alternative answer he could have given without torpedoing his relationship with the fans, which he won't do because he's too professional and knows that he may well have to stay here at least another year. It's like being in your 1-1 at work and your boss asking your goals for the next 12 months. Nobody (again, with a functioning brain) says "well I'm jobhunting at the moment and hope to be out of here ASAP", you answer the question positively because you've got to cover all bases in case you don't leave. But similarly nobody should read that 1-1 and say "Look he loves it here!".

Agree with this. But he's also really intelligent. Not saying any of our players aren't, but Bruno and even Tonali are governed by passion when they speak whereas Isak isn't the Iceman just in front of goal, he's incredibly measured and thoughtful when speaking too so even if he did love the club and want to stay forever, he's never going to say as much because that takes away bargaining power when it comes to contract renewals etc. Which leads me to the below... Absolutely nothing in there at all. It's a waste of words. He's never going to say he hates it here and wants to leave, and is desperate to go to Liverpool or Madrid or wherever, no player will ever say that. But on the flip side he's also not said explicitly "I love it here and want to stay". His words are VERY carefully chosen - "It's been written how much I love the city and club" is very different to "I really love the city and club". He hasn't said "I want to stay" or "I want to sign a new contract", he's just said "I feel incredibly comfortable" and "The only focus I have is on playing". He's ice cold. There's very little emotion there. Every word is picked with care and all he's actually said is that he's not agitating to leave, which tells us nothing because no player would tell the press that anyway even if he had his bags packed behind closed doors. That said I absolutely love seeing him play for us and hope he stays for many years to come. But it's new contract this year or, sadly, he'll have to be sold next summer IMO.

Who would you drop to the bench for him, Burn or Botman? We'd have the same dilemma here.

I mean I hear what you're saying but PSG sold Mbappe then went on and won the Champion's League.

For that money I'd be happy to sell. But I'd also be happy to keep him and turn down that bid. Love seeing him play for us, he's genuinely world class, and when he's fit and playing we can beat anyone in the world. Similarly though every team sells good players at some point so if he did go for some ridiculous fee then so be it.

Good with his feet, shit in the air. Maybe I'm old school but in my opinion you need to be a big bugger to play DC. Cannavaro the exception, of course. And Koeman, but he was just a FK merchant.

Agree, but he'll also be 29 by the time the new season starts. We can't afford to let players finish their careers here, winding down their abilities on big salaries, when selling them for good money is an option and getting in someone younger to replace them now. I don't want him to be sold, but I'd not be surprised if he was.

To be fair if they sign a 28 year old fullback with 15 senior England caps they've every right to be pleased. He'll immediately be their best player and will have resale value if/when they plummet out of the league in 12 months time. It's a good signing, if it happens.

No, because he's a lazy player who would demand silly wages and is the wrong profile and plays in a position where we've already got 2 excellent players. It's nothing but agent/paper talk trying to drive up interest elsewhere through fear of missing out on him due to us signing him, there's next to no chance we're after him for about 5 different reasons, each of which alone would be enough to torpedo the deal.

Why does he have to want to save his marriage? I don't understand that and a few people have suggested that or similar. Plenty of people fall out of love, decide they don't want to be together anymore for whatever reason. It's a perfectly valid position for him to take and many reasons he might reasonably take it.

Apt, since the rest of him looks like a cunt.

Chelsea finished above us last season. I get that they're just hoying money around in a ridiculous way, but it's not like they're Man U.

We should all just link that to every time they mention him not liking football before the takeover. No words, just the link to that. Again and again, every time they say it.

Weird that they'd rather pay to watch themselves get trashed every week in the Prem than pick up free tickets to see themselves win in the championship. Suppose being a mackem was always an act of masochism.

Would love to see a map of the postcodes of those 28,000 signatories. We all know what it would look like.

What about people who put an apostrophe in 000s?

This will lead to the suggestion that since promotion / relegation is pointless, it should be abolished, and we'll get a closed shop. Some might say "well it basically is now anyway" but that's a world away from it actually being a closed shop.

Get them to both sign new long-term contracts a day before the transfer goes through, then bill each other £30m for the fee.