oldtype

It's not just about principles. The point was that there are real costs associated with unilaterally caving in to demands that go far beyond just the immediate one or two mil. The Luque deal was a symbol not an analogy but I don't suppose you'd bother to make that distinction given how little time you've spent on considering what my point actually is. Much more convenient to skip straight to the one-liner putdown.

Now that's just petulant. It would be nice to have an upgrade on Simpson, but having him as first choice is the lesser of two evils in this case compared to paying whatever it takes to get Debuchy.

It's not as simple as a little extra money on one player though. Once we allow selling clubs to know that we're susceptible to brinksmanship, other clubs will be more liable to move the goalposts on us like Lille have done. Right now we project a very strong image as a club who will not negotiate too far beyond our initial price and who will not have our chain dragged around by unreasonable sellers or dodgy agents. Once we lose that, it'll just become even harder for us to sign the players we want in the future. As things stand this principle means we will simply miss out on players. Everybody knows our game now, what makes you think we'll just keep getting away with it? Nobody expects or wants us to be ripped off, but getting value for money isn't a new idea. The key is finding that compromise between driving a hard bargain and being flexible. Sometimes you have to pay the going rate or you'll end up with nowt. Because there's always an incentive for clubs to sell. Our game is that we leverage every incentive and potential advantage we can to bring prices down as low as possible. Part of it is targeting players who have fallen out with their club, want to leave, our have contractual complications. As long as we have a reputation for playing hardball, we can take maximum advantage of these factors to force clubs to sell at a price lower than they would be comfortable with. None of that works anymore when we start gaining a reputation for frequently caving in to the selling club's asking price. Obviously there's some room for flexibility, but there's a fine line between being open to negotiations and being a sucker. We were on the wrong side of that line in the past and I think we're on the right side of it now. The club have shown even in the case of Debuchy that we're not completely immovable from our opening bid (we've made what, three separate bids?) But what we're not going to do is snap their hands off as soon as they ask for 8 mil. That's the path toward more Albert Luques. To summarize my point, there are real costs to paying a bit more for someone like Debuchy that go far, far beyond 1 or 2 million pounds. And I'm happy that the people who run the club are aware of this.

Goes both ways. The selling club is pressured as well because they're faced with the process of having an unhappy player stuck on their books with nothing to show for it.

It's not as simple as a little extra money on one player though. Once we allow selling clubs to know that we're susceptible to brinksmanship, other clubs will be more liable to move the goalposts on us like Lille have done. Right now we project a very strong image as a club who will not negotiate too far beyond our initial price and who will not have our chain dragged around by unreasonable sellers or dodgy agents. Once we lose that, it'll just become even harder for us to sign the players we want in the future.

The thing for me is that I've passed the point where I trust that the people who run the club are competent and acting in the club's best interests. If they can't make necessary signings, I tend to assume that they have a pretty good reason for doing so rather than that they've suddenly turned incompetent or malicious. The club is in a good place right now on all levels, the squad, youth development, the business side etc. It's not perfect but it's certainly far and away the best state I've ever seen us in as a Newcastle fan. I value the principles that brought us here more than I would an extra player or two. What I absolutely do not want the club to do is to start caving in and paying that "extra 1~2 mil" or buying a player we haven't scouted sufficiently just because they feel like they need to "make progress" every window or the fans are pressuring them to sign somebody. Anybody. Every time we compromise on our principles, it takes this club one step away from being one of the best run clubs in the league and one step closer to the likes of Sunderland, QPR, West Ham and their ridiculous unsustainable transfer policies. The very same policies that we adopted not so long ago on the path to financial ruin and relegation. It may not be much fun in the short term, but keeping our best practices in place are much more important for the long term future of the club than signing a better RB or a new striker.

It kind of makes sense for us to have a more defensive-minded fullback on the right given that it's often difficult for Ben Arfa to contribute to defending due to the fact that he's always drifting towards the middle of the pitch. It works the other way as well because that creates a lot of space for an attacking fullback to overlap into, but still, something to think about.

This. Unspectacular but not the worst RB in the world. Especially given that we've been forced to work with much, much worse very recently.

I'm pretty confident Carroll would do well if he comes back here, and the board wouldn't be trying to buy him unless they were as well.

Unsure if this was deliberate or not

Seems like an excessive amount of certainty to be attaching to a statement that's surely 100% conjecture.

European nights are back at SJP! I'll be a gazillion miles away and I'm still excited

Thank you Mike for single handedly sending the forum into "kill all the foreigners" mode again

started laughing like a madman in the middle of the office

Thank you, man. I know I'm not saying anything wrong here. I've learned that the first rule of this club is that you do not talk about the club. It's a don't ask don't tell kind of thing.

I for one would happily welcome Mike to the "a player from my country plays for Sunderland" club

Now we can have a wonderful discussion about whether ALL the goals we scored in the 433 last season were "system based" or not

Meh, he may or may not have said that and even if it did it could very easily just be more Pardy mind games

Ah fuck, come on.

Perch already class

Well, at least we're going for it

Jonas: pass it to me! Barfa: nah Jonas:

Hatem should probably have just dived there

Should just take all our corners short

Pretty entertaining second half. Wish we played like this in the first.