oldtype

Thank fuck for that

This is why sane people don't go on strike btw. You are choosing to mess up your fitness, risk injury, and potentially ruin an entire season of your prime. (cough, Wissa, cough).

I had completely erased from my mind that Allardyce once managed England

Yeah I think we need a backup leftback to deputize for Hall. Doesn't need to be anyone too fancy, just a slightly more affluent man's version of Targett will do. I'd like us to look at decent older players who can be had for relatively cheap. Doesn't make sense to bring in a young prospect given how young Hall himself still is.

Roughly a quarter of the season is gone. Bro has 1 goal and 1 assist in 10 games for club and country combined. This is beyond "he's not fit/out of form" at this point. Fourth largest transfer in world football history. You don't buy those players to gradually ease them into the team. Maybe he turns it around, but I think we're at least allowed to fantasize about the idea that he may not.

We keep posting "he's going to come good eventually" over and over again but... are we sure?

He hasn’t even turned twenty yet. We shouldn’t be putting a ceiling on any player that young who is already PL starting quality.

Strategically leaked the secret extension to get the press off his back? Regardless, it’s still good news. Even if he still needs a pay rise, we have a little more time to get it sorted than we would otherwise and can negotiate from a position of strength.

Ross Wilson is so good that he went back in time to get the Tonali extension done.

Can’t imagine how absurdly good he would be if he was working with a free-roaming wing attacker with goalscoring chops like… uh…. Ronaldo, Messi, or Mbappe?

I assume his Cisse-esuqe finishing streak will slow down at some point, but the general play is only going to get better and better as others get used to playing with him.

It's heartening to see that we're capable of absolutely dismantling inferior teams. Just hope we can carry this on into the PL as well.

Fans: "We need to upgrade on Pope because he can't kick the ball." Pope: kicking?

Owen was an ass when he left and continued to be an ass after he left, but he was past his prime at that point (that weirdly good attacking midfielder spell under Keegan notwithstanding) and nobody was devastated to see him go. He was never as important to the club as Isak was, so I don't care about him as much.

As everyone keeps reiterating, he'll probably click at some point if he keeps getting the opportunity. But at this point I think there's a reasonable chance now that he doesn't get that opportunity because he (rightfully) loses his starting spot to Ekitike.

I think there’s a bit of a general malaise in the front three right now (with the exception of center forward of course) due to losing our most influential attacking player and having to integrate a lot of new talent. That’s the more plausible explanation rather than Gordon, Elanga, and Barnes all going to shit at the same time. Not having either of our first choice full backs can’t help either. Woltemessi has been fantastic individually but he’s a complete weirdo of a player in terms of style, and I can see it being a little difficult for other attackers to get used to playing with him.

In all likelihood they probably finish above us, but if the defending champions are assessing the success of their season on whether they finish above Newcastle, they're already losing.

Every time I open this thread I'm thinking to myself "this is all loads of fun but surely he's got to come good at some point." ...But what if he didn't?

By the end of the season I don’t think we’d see Guehi as a big upgrade over Botman/Thiaw

And if anyone wants to feel even better about replacing Isak with Woltemade + profit + PSR accounting flexibility, imagine if we had not sold and had an unfit, unhappy Isak leading the line for us most of the year with Wissa out injured/off to AFCON. Would have been disastrous.

Don't think it's much of a stretch to say that we were going to have to overpay for one of the two strikers anyway even if we kept Isak. We weren't going to go into the season with Wilson on a pay-as-your-play or someone like DCL on a free as our second striker.

The thing is, the actual money doesn't matter for us because we have a lot of money. Only thing that matters is the PSR/FFP book value. And from that perspective, selling Isak still gives us a great deal of flexibility even taking into account the (steep) cost of the two strikers who came in.

He is what he is at this point. Still a good player offensively but probably a below-average defensive fullback now whose athleticism has deteriorated noticeably and probably becomes worse when he's forced to play too many games. Still more than good enough to be our second choice right back, but in an ideal world we wouldn't be relying on him as much as we're going to be forced to this season.

Losing him would feel so much worse than losing Isak IMO. I always felt like Isak was just making a pit stop here. Sandro feels like one of ours.

Haven’t had this much affection for an individual player since Shearer. As a rule, I try not to get too attached to individuals, but it genuinely feels like Bruno could see out the rest of his prime (maybe another five seasons?) with us.