Chris_R

Yep.

I'm in Saudi Arabia at the moment, have been for the last 9 days. Jeddah, more precisely. And it's interesting speaking to locals here at work they all seem far more interested in Newcastle now compared to my last trip in January 2020. I had a new group of trainees today and I told them I'm from Newcastle and immediately they all wanted to talk about football and about the takeover. They're very keen to see how far we can progress, none of them seem to expect overnight miracles but I definitely got the perception that whatever their historical allegiances regarding Man U or Liverpool, all of them have half an eye on us now as a "second team" at the very least. It's definitely something that everyone here is aware of, it seems to have been well publicised, which I think bodes well for what we can expect in the medium to long term because PIF will want this to succeed.

I'm going to attempt to summon him..... Yes, I am that bored today. No, I'm not sorry. If he's announced in the next few minutes: you're welcome.

I've heard the medical is taking so long because they need him to do 200m on the treadmill.

From the videos I've seen of Botman, what he lacks is acceleration, not pace. Once he gets moving he's fast, it just seems he takes a bit longer to get going. Mainly because he's a bit of a unit. Obviously low acceleration is still not great, but he does have good pace.

No wonder he needs 19 people to help him in the fight, reading that I think the poor bloke was typing that out with a head wand.

It's a bit silly and unrealistic to say "well what if we won these games we dominated?" without on the flip side acknowledging that we maybe should've lost or drawn some games we maybe unfairly snatched. It generally balances itself out and you cannot cherry pick like that.

Players should have agents just as, rather topically, workers should be in unions. We see time and again that Union represented staff get better deals. The only problem is, as NUFC fans we're cheering on the corporation. That's why we don't think they should have agents.

Once we've got 4 better wingers than ASM, we can consider selling him. To sell him before would weaken us. Right now he's the best winger we've got. Selling him would be monumentally stupid.

He absolutely will not stay at Brentford. This will be his last big move, and with all due respect Brentford will not be able to offer him what he wants which will either be trophies, money, or most likely both.

Airports: famously located in city centres. Absolute weirdos. I'd love to see them walk from London Heathrow to Westminster Abbey.

Agree with everything apart from the last 6 words. He has the finances and will to turn any club into a bottom-half PL club. For the mackems, that's parardise. For us, it was awful. I'd love him to buy Spurs or someone currently above his glass ceiling and drag them down, but he cannot afford that kind of team anymore. There's a very real chance though that if he bought a lower-league club he could throw enough at them to get them to the PL and keep them bobbing about like he did for us. Aiming for 17th in the PL isn't terrible for every club.

I was keen for us to get Botman, and still am, but it seems that Lille have every intention of dragging this on until late August unless someone throws silly money at them - Which to be fair as he's their player they have every right to do. If that's the case, we need to move on because we'll end up with them having us over a barrel as the deadline ticks down. I'm sure we've got good enough people dealing with this not to put ourselves in that position, so hopefully it all sorts out one way or the other.

Why? Do they get bored during geography lessons?

Yeah it's that. They've nothing to be gained by wanting to swap UAE rulers for Saudi rulers, who are potentially worse in terms of human rights but could achieve no more success with them than they've already had.

Dunno about that. Great in his day, but by now he's probably even slower than Botman.

I'm not sure all would. Man City wouldn't need it. Liverpool wouldn't want it, nor probably most Man U fans. Basically the few teams with a realistic chance of sustained success or recent success would possibly turn it down, because they don't need it to win things and the negatives are worse than the positives. The other 88+ clubs in the league would be just like us though. But then we'd be like they are now, calling them out for embracing it. So we should be honest that the hypocrisy probably goes both ways.

Won't need them now he's not carrying the team.

Is it though? Owen fucked his hamstrings young and was never the same player again. It's wise to be cautious over injuries that could hamper a player's career.

Hope we put a decent bid in instead of titting around.

We're absolutely being used for sportswashing, I think it's crazy to suggest otherwise. Like this LIV golf.... Are you saying that's not sportswashing, that it's also to make money? Because they'll make nothing off the hundreds of millions they're throwing into that. They're trying to rehabilitate their world image via sports.

This. If there's some greater good to come from their ownership of us, maybe them being involved in elite sport at the highest level (Ha, maybe eventually!) will help them modernise and westernise at a faster pace. Treating countries like pariahs rarely helps them integrate. That's certainly my hope.