oldtype

To be fair, that could have been the extra 5m that threw us over the PSR line and forced us to sell Minteh for all we know

Ironically, I think what it would take is even more money coming into the league. If owners at PIF's level of wealth came in, bought up all the non-top-six clubs, and demanded changes, that would get it done.

How could he possibly know whether Man City would have gone for him or not if we matched the bid pre CWC? Nobody at Burnley or NUFC would know that. Even if he heard it directly from someone at Man City, it would be after the fact and they would have no reason not to embellish/twist the knife a bit.

You forgot the part where the winners get an extra $100m for funsies.

No disrespect to the folks back home, but nobody actually wants to go on these stupid Asia Tours anyway so I suspect the club was not all that bothered. He's not going to sit out actual games that matter.

The reality is that Man City always had a direct veto on this signing. Regardless of whether or not we were willing to chuck an extra 10m at Burnley to "get it done," the only scenario in which we get him is if there was a moment in time where Man City were simply not interested. And there's no reporter who would know if that is actually true or not. The failure is not in the amount we bid, it's in wasting time with this kind of player in the first place.

Rushing into a sale because we can't handle the stress is exactly the wrong way to deal with this sort of thing. Best-run clubs are comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Mike, the Brits took a look at the idea of salary caps and implemented the worst version humanly imaginable. You would have to assume these idiots would do the same with playoffs as well.

Maybe the grand strategy is that the Top 6 have to run out of money for this window eventually and we'll finally get to sign players then.

People at other clubs have phones. The door starts opening when we act.

He will more likely than not never play for the first team, as is always the case for this type of signing, but even if he doesn't we will probably get more for him than what we paid for him and that will help us with PSR. Every club who wants to compete has to make this kind of signing in the modern era.

The idea that you can simply "wrap up" transfers before the big clubs come in if you just negotiate right is simply wrong. That's not how this works. Man City were not alerted to the existence of James Trafford because they read a tweet that we were interested in him.

There is something wrong with our identification of players because we are persistently going after players that we simply are not able to sign in the current climate. I don't buy this whole idea that we could just bid 10m more for everyone and the deal would go through instantly before the big clubs come in. What's to stop them from just upping their bid themselves given that they have no meaningful financial constraints and we do?

They’re only demanding what the market will pay for their abilities. I wouldn’t ever fault a worker for doing that. Especially given that they entities ultimately footing the bill for these wages all have basically infinite funds.

Somehow over the years Gouffran and Obertan had merged into the same player in my memories

This reminded me of the pure, unadulterated joy of Jose Enrique’s first game back at SJP. Brought a smile to my face.

That "not Liverpool's fault" detail was how I could tell it came directly from the club. They don't want to burn bridges with Liverpool when they might be trying to extract more than a hundreds million pound from them relatively soon.

Don't jinx the Wissa deal man!

Reads like it was pre-written by club PR and sent to Edwards the moment the Isak news broke. So clearly this is our party line, I just hope it's not unwarranted bravado.

Was about to post the Pardew dance GIF and thought better of it. We should be kinder to each other in these difficult times.

While the manager who is pissed off at losing his best player and wants to get immediate results next season is running the whole thing. I'm sure nothing bad will happen.

Done deal guys don't get the clicks anymore. Gotta pay the bills.

Just don't sell. It will be fine. And we'll still get our 150m next year when we'll have a fully-functional front office to have planned out how to spend it for a year. Some kind of unplanned, ill-advised shopping spree over the next month with 150m burning a hole in our pocket would be just about the worse possible way to approach this.

Of course he's a shill. All transfer newsbreakers are shills. Which is why the best way to interpret news like this is to ask who would have leaked this information to him and for what purpose. Could it be the player's agent using us to drum up interest because he's concerned that big clubs are running out of money and he might not get a move this summer? Maybe, in which case, there's probably no real movement. Could it be someone in our club, as a PR move to try to placate the angry fanbase? Maybe, in which case, there may be something more here.

If we do sell Isak, it does seem like it could be a musical chairs situation where all the big clubs are out of money and we could actually be allowed to sign players like this. ...nah.