oldtype

Meh, they've spent a shit-ton of money to go from lower-mid table to upper-mid table. Fletcher's pretty good and Johnson is fantastic on his day but these two players don't represent a massive leap,forward for them. They're just about as threatening as they were with Bent and Gyan.

I think we're just really set on Debuchy and are looking to get him in a future transfer window and persevere with Simpson in the interim rather than go for a plan b. Or plan C, for that matter, given that Van der Wiel supposedly turned us down

Transfers happen because the selling club wants to sell and the buying club wants to buy. Of course a club has incentive to lower the price if they want to sell a player.

To be fair we do this song and dance every year. We always "need" more players.

Some threads just need to be slowly walked away from.

Yep, it's not the end of the world. He's not as good as we ideally need, but he's not terrible either. Do think Perch should be given a chance at being first-choice right back though. Given how solid he's been filling in at various spots, I'm surprised he's not being given the opportunity to prove himself in his natural position.

That guy is such a fucking troll It's like he knows we're out there and is specifically trying to drive us insane.

Would gladly have Enrique back. There's no doubting his ability and I can forgive him being disrespectful towards the club. He's been through enough pain and it's not like he can help himself being completely thick.

Cheeky bid for Walcott?

Meh, given that he's playing for a contract this year, maybe he'll buck up his ideas.

The feeling I have, and this is all conjecture, is that the club is going to make Carroll the first priority and push Liverpool hard in the remaining few days. I'm pretty sure we'll be back in for Debuchy in January and I think there's a good chance we'll succeed.

Wouldn't be surprised if the club think we can get him on our terms in January when he's played half a season unhappy and Lille are probably out of the Champions League. Playing the waiting game worked out with Cisse, after all.

So we've gone all the way back to accusing Ashley of asset stripping now?

I'm honestly not qualified to decide on whether that's a reasonable price or not, but it does beg the question, if 6m for Debuchy is such a no-brainer than why has nobody else offered to pay it?

Everyone misses out on targets. What's more important is the fact that we haven't brought in a single overpaid failure since the adoption of the current policy.

Anything that brings Owen back to SJP is a plus in my book. Other than us signing him of course

No, my point is that if we cave in once it increases the likelihood that in the future selling clubs will make further unrealistic demands, which could be much more detrimental to us over the long term than not getting Debuchy right now I just think that we can't have it all ways; if we finish as high as fifth in the world's highest profile league, selling clubs simply aren't going to believe that we can't afford more money. If we do it by buying players cheaply who increase in value dramatically, selling clubs simply aren't going to believe that it was an accident. If there's a new TV deal imminent that gives ludicrous sums of additional income, selling clubs simply aren't going to believe that it's not there to tap into. Once you step beyond signing only players that have contract clauses, club disputes or are unattached, you have to compromise at some stage. As with any endeavour, there is obviously a need to be flexible at times. But I believe that compromise has to come from a position of strength if it is to benefit us. Take the Debuchy case for example. We've apparently made three separate bids, each larger than the previous. Lille have not moved an inch from their original asking price. (If anything, they've moved the goalposts on us.) Are we the ones who are being unreasonable and inflexible? And what sort of message does it send when we just throw our hands up and pay them whatever they want?

No, my point is that if we cave in once it increases the likelihood that in the future selling clubs will make further unrealistic demands, which could be much more detrimental to us over the long term than not getting Debuchy right now

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.