oldtype

I left home a decade ago so I won’t be there to celebrate when the squad finally arrives, but I just want to say: the Korean NUFC supporters club has been continuously operational for over twenty years now, despite the club visiting a grand total of zero times, generally making no effort whatsoever to market itself, and having provided little to nothing to celebrate on the pitch. There is nothing even vaguely approaching this level of support for any other club outside of the top six (and frankly we’d be bigger than Spurs if Son wasn’t playing for them). In particular, Jeongmin, who’s been organizing everything the whole time (even during the darkest of the Ashley years where weak-minded folks like myself completely fucked off), is one of the most devoted supporters this club has ever known, and I hope the appropriate people have been in contact with him. Asian fanbases are no longer a bunch of glory hunter casuals to be exploited for shirt sales: many of us chose our clubs in the early 00s, and have been supporters continuously from boyhood to middle age. We’ve been watching every match and following every transfer rumor since back when we were all sure that Shola was going to play for England one day. Now that the club is actually trying to expand its global footprint, I hope it understands that they have these folks as a resource to help identify what about the story of Newcastle United has been so appealing that the it could attract loyal fans around the world even when it wasn’t trying particularly hard to do so. There’s a ton of untapped potential here. I imagine that’s part of why PIF wanted to buy us in the first place.

Cartel clubs got all their business done early so we could conceivably be the biggest spenders remaining as well. Plenty of time to get some panic buys through the door.

Perhaps they can, but with all the public speculation there’s no reason for selling clubs to not have already started making asks that price in the need to replace Isak.

Prices are already ridiculous even if we don’t accept so honestly I don’t think it can get any worse. In reality, everyone is probably already adding a 20% “Isak tax” to their asking prices.

This is another reason why I think us lowballing teams is probably not the actual problem. The dude running the transfers is indisputably even more impatient than the fans to strengthen his squad. If he could have gotten four more players in by offering more money he probably would have done so already.

The initial Edwards piece that came out after the news broke that said “not for sale” was essentially dictated by the club. I don’t see why anyone cares whether PIF does a direct statement or not. It’s not like Liverpool’s put out a club statement saying they want him.

A lot of sports journalists say this to be fair. It’s hard to be as much of a fan as it used to be when it’s your job and you’re seeing how the sausage is made. If I ever had to represent NUFC in court (I hope not), I imagine my relationship with the club would change a little as well.

I think it’s fair to assume that as long as they feel internally that they can avoid relegation, they don’t care about their short term performance as much as we do.

The thing about having your manager in charge of transfers is that it basically guarantees that he’ll be absolutely pig-headed about it and refuse to sell for anything other than an absurd offer. We’re all having trouble of letting go of Isak. Imagine how the guy who actually writes his name on the team sheet feels. (he has to answer to the owners obviously, but playing hardball is what he’ll be advocating for)

For what it’s worth, there’s absolutely nothing to indicate that we’re going to “bend over and take it” other than the assumption that everything that could possibly go wrong this summer will go wrong. If he’s sold, I’d expect it to be for a humongous fee.

Yes. “The” trophy.

It’s just not as simple as “we should bid 10m more for every player.” If we do so, there’s still nothing to stop the selling club from knocking on Liverpool or Manchester City’s door and asking if they’ll do the same. The fundamental challenge here is that we are competing for the same signings with a handful of clubs that can spend much more than we can, can offer larger fees and higher wages, and have all decided to do so this summer. This is not Football Manager. You do not progress directly to the “offer contract” screen once you meet the asking price.

The reality is that there was never going to be a single transfer window where we were going to “kick on” and start challenging for titles. The financial constraints on the club and the rapidly increasing spending power of the big six mean that it’s going to take years and years to get to the point where we’re no longer on the outside looking in. We’ve gotten lucky with our initial wave of signings and our manager, but the short term success does little to diminish the fundamental structural challenges we face in advancing further. (It’s worth noting that even *within* the big six, only two clubs have won the trophy in the past eight years, and two of the six haven’t even come remotely close). That’s not to say we’ve conducted ourselves particularly well this transfer window, but the fundamental failure in my view is not anticipating that the bigger clubs would be in a historic spending cycle this year and going after targets we never had a realistic chance of signing. Rushing the process due to lofty ambitions that didn’t take into account our structural constraints, rather than a lack of ambition or “bad negotiating.” Building a contender from nothing is a long term project, and we’d best get used to that.

This goes for both Isak and Wissa, but these “I won’t report and won’t play” threats are so incredibly hollow. Preseason tours are whatever, but nobody is skipping real matches and throwing away a year of their prime, and potentially tanking their appeal to the very elite clubs they’re trying to get a move to. I’m sure it’s happened at some point, but it’s incredibly rare and usually a sign of terrible judgment.

This is exactly why it’s insane to have the manager running transfers for an extended period of time. You can’t have your manager feeling like one mistake on the transfer market will get him fired, *in addition to* the possibility that mistakes on the pitch will get him fired. People who feel like their job is constantly at risk screw up. It’s inevitable.

I don’t know why anyone would consider it particularly implausible that we have a poster here who “knows an agent.” There are plenty of agents out there. Obviously doesn’t mean that everything they say is gospel, but it’s fun to speculate and that’s what this forum is for.

There are 4-6 clubs who can afford a miss because they can just spend more money. Then there are another 10 or so clubs who can afford a miss because they don’t particularly care as long as they stay in the league.

This seems like a reasonable guess as to why we’re going in this direction. It’s just unfortunate that we’re learning in real time that that strategy comes with its own downsides in terms of inflated prices and missing out on targets without many alternatives. I think being forced to fire sell Minteh and Anderson and not being able to sign anyone for three windows because we didn’t have our PSR ducks in a row scarred decision makers at the club more than we know.

We’re playing harder ball than Brentford, given that they at least appear willing to entertain bids while we have not.

Right, everything is a little dysfunctional right now due to the unforeseen personnel turnover, but it seems like a really odd time to be engaging in a rending of garments. If you thought we were going to sign 4-5 of the best players in Europe this summer and break up the big six, it’s becoming increasingly clear that was never realistic given PSR and our lack of a dedicated lead decision maker for transfers. (And the club’s biggest mistake this window is that they appear to have thought we could do that too).

I concur that shallow online Liverpool fans are annoying. But consider that if we want to compete with them on revenue, that’s what our fan base will have to become as well. Just the “good forrins” like Mike (and to a lesser extent) myself will not be enough if we want to be a club that’s splashing a hundred million in the transfer market every year. Successful modern clubs need to accept that they have two different kinds of fans: a passionate core of diehards that is complemented by an army of casuals. The latter wouldn’t exist without the former, but the former needs the latter as well.

For all their undeniable fuckups, they spend up to the PSR limit every window without fail and are at least attempting to grow revenue in the long run. That’s more than you can say for most owners in the league.

Imagine if their respective clubs immediately decided "oh no we need to sell right away, we can't have an unhappy player" the moment Ronaldo/Rooney/Gerrard/Fabregas/Mbappe etc. etc. etc. agitated for a move for the first time. Again, top players do this all the time. Get used to it. We'll sell him when it works for us, not a moment sooner.

Based on no knowledge whatsoever, surely most of these clubs are at or close to their (comparatively lofty) PSR limits, with the possible exception of Spurs? I know there's been reporting that Man United is basically done and that Liverpool needs to sell before they can buy Isak. A bit of a pipe dream, but perhaps we'll see some progress now that we've entered the stretch of the window where the top six have had their pick of players and can't extend themselves to casually hijack whoever we want.

It's really not a disruption to the club as much as it is a disruption to the fans. The players and staff are professionals and they deal with speculation all the time. It's not as if it was a secret that Isak would probably be moving on to greener pasteurs at some point. Even if Isak wants shot of us ASAP, it's in his best interest to show up and keep playing well to keep his value high, or perhaps raise it even higher. He will not refuse to become match fit or sit out real games. Especially not when he'll be under the bright lights of the Champions League. Yes, we will get stressed out at all the nonsense speculation on Twitter, but who cares. Any "big club" not named Real Madrid or Barcelona goes through this stuff with their best players. Get used to it. We're under absolutely no pressure to sell.