oldtype

We were one season removed from the championship and we played half the season with Ryan Taylor at left back. That was by far the most talented Ashley era squad, but there’s no way in hell it was talented enough to walk us to fifth “despite” the manager. (As is evidenced by the fact that most of them turned to shit shortly thereafter.) It was struck-by-lightning level lucky, yes. But its revisionist history to say he had nothing to do with it.

I’m not suggesting the death penalty for people who have been wrong in the past. I’ve certainly been. I just think we should all own up to it

He was genuinely loved by the fanbase for a short period of time. The fact that you personally were not quite there isn’t really relevant.

Nah I am not willing to go this far absolutely not.

I have no idea if you were personally against him or not but even you're admitting that for a brief period of time, you started to feel like you had gotten it wrong. We all did. To various degrees.

Don't force me to spend some quality time with the search function bro

Don't make me dig up your posts from 2010 guys. It's fine to just admit that we all collectively got fooled for a moment there.

There is no such thing as 5th in spite of a manager man What happened after exposed that he was a terrible manager who just happened to get unbelievably lucky, but he still made the correct tactical decisions that season. Even if he made them by mistake.

Nope. I saw us win a cup and decided the good times had gone on for far too long.

There is exactly zero percent chance you were actually hating Pardew when we were fifth, Ben Arfa was tearing up defenses every week and Cisse was scoring fucking UFO goals at Stamford Bridge. Zero. I was at the Sir Bobby statute unveiling and distinctly remember the spontaneous applause and cheers he was getting just by walking by. We're all ashamed to admit it now, but the man was loved

We finished fifth under Pardew. FIFTH. We all loved him almost as much as we love Eddie now for like half a year. I know we all want to forget it now, but it happened. Equally amazing is how he managed to lose all of that goodwill within less than a season after.

Fucking Pardew never misses out on these opportunities to score easy reputation points Fully expect to have Graeme Souness and Steve Bruce rolled out next.

Probably. I'm sure we'd consider buying him instead of Wissa if he was available for a Wissa price.

For what it's worth this really feels like a situation where Chelsea wants to sell him to us, he wants to come to us, and we're like "...nah"

Or one of them could crash out of the group stages and be back relatively quickly, and we could muddle through the games we have neither with Eddie Howe black magic and all the worry will have been for nothing. And either way, nobody will care if by some miracle Nicholas Jackson plays five seasons for us and scores a hundred goals (I'm not saying that will happen, but maybe the people at the club think he could). Transfer decisions should be made with the next 4-5 years in mind, not one month of one season.

If we like both players and are offered attractive deals for them, we should not let one month of AFCON in one season dictate our decisions one way or another. Transfers have to be made with an eye on the long term.

There's only one way: by selling Isak.

Honestly that's a small enough difference that (1) I don't really care; (2) none of us are in a position to evaluate whether either fee is too much or too little without access to the clubs books. I think something vaguely in the 60m range is fair value for this player in the current market and I wouldn't mind us spending that. Would require an Isak sale first of course.

I'm not at all confident that he would print goals for us, but I think he may enable Elanga and Barnes to do so.

He's smart enough to realize that he cannot functionally continue to be both manager and DoF. There is no human on Earth that could do both roles in a modern football club. Both jobs have gotten too big and too complex. It's simply a matter of finding someone competent who is a good personality fit and capable of working with him. Of course,we're never going to have a fully modern structure where the DoF is the one who provides organizational continuity and the manager reports to the DoF. Howe has achieved far too much over the past few years while our first two DoFs have floundered for that to ever happen. But there's no reason why we couldn't bring in someone who is willing to work with him as an equal. Howe should be able to concentrate on putting the best team on the pitch possible for the upcoming season, while the DOF can focus more on long-term sustainability and success.

Honestly feels like a story his agent would have leaked to get the fans onside once he joins us way too convenient.

If we sell Isak it makes sense to put some of the surplus money into a younger CM who is about as good as the Bruno/Tonali/Joelinton trio. With the amount of games we have we could easily rotate the four of them throughout the season and still have minutes left to give Miley.

With all the abuse we’ve been through this summer, all he has to do is one “it’s an honor to play for Newcastle, this is a massive club” fluff interview and we’ll all be eating out of the palm of his hand. Complete tap-in.

This whole situation will become a lot less stressful once we at least get Wissa in and can breathe easy knowing that we have someone to play striker at least while we evaluate our options.

Yes, the hope here is clearly that he’s a top prospect whose development has stalled due to being in a shitty situation with shit managers.