kingxlnc

Agreed although that looks very good in hindsight at the time Tonali was exciting and the others were questionable - eg why buy Tino when trippier was one of the best in Europe previous season, Hall had only played a few games and was expensive, Barnes wasn’t as sexy as Paqueta or Maddison etc

Best transfer windows in memory 1995/96 Ginola Hislop Ferdinand Barton (Asprilla Batty) 1996/97 for Shearer alone 2001/02 Bellamy and Robert were game changers 2015/16 Wijnaldum Thauvin Mbemba Mitrovic were four of the best young players in Europe 2021/22 Jan Trippier Burn Targett Bruno Wood

Ernest Nuamah

Actually was the best of both Ginolas technical and Robert's productivity

What happened to moukoko

Makes me think if Elanga really was a player we liked, we should have done more with the Anderson bait last year. We did need the 35m of course but we could have even over paid after July, the Vlach+Guehi money. So Forest offer 35m and have a gentleman's a agreement that we would offer 60m for Elanga. Both of us would have overpaid but it's all acceptable. Better than the 20m wasted on Oddy

Agreed Chelsea are by far the worst of the worst Man City are operating from a huge advantageous position but their scouting and generally how they operate is professional, efficient and slick. They don't tend to 'overbuy' - just identify what they need and just get on with it. It's always not the most obvious names either, so they have a good scouting network. Liverpool are also benefitting from being way ahead but again, they buy and sell pretty well. Chelsea are blatant and so boring. Tosin is actually a prime example - they did NOT need him at all. He wasn't better than their CB's and they only seemed to show an interest because he was free. Man U also operate with impunity - crazy level of debt, miserable transfer record but seemingly impervious to the damage. Dust worself off and go again. Any other club would be doing an Everton if they had even half the recent record of Man U. The way before was the young wonderkids would go to the second tier clubs, Leverkusen, Leipzig, Ajax, Villareal, Atlanta etc, establish themselves and then the big clubs would swoop but the money would be distributed. Now the hype is so huge that even the Barca's and Madrids are going for young prodigies like Roony and Guler. I'm sure if it was a free market, it would be interesting to see if Newcastle could spend their way to the top - even if it was organically, like one or two big players a season. Same with Villa, Spurs etc. Under Ashley, he never spent so competing was pointless. Now, we can't spend, so there is also a level of pointlessness here too. When you're hamstrung deliberately, footballers have short careers. Isak and Bruno were promised title runs - which probably could have been the case by now if we'd been allowed to spend. PSR then actually does its job even through the back door as the top players get impatient and want to play for the 'top clubs' already challenging... and then we have to start again Man City were allowed to get their spine with no limit that led them to their PL - Aguero, KDB, Yaya Toure, Hart, Kompany. Chelsea ditto under Mourinho.

Brentford know their place now the RWTD are back in the PL RWTD= red and white stripe top dogs

Good shout, comes across like a Tottenham player

Our team just with minteh and Anderson looks so much better equipped for this season. That was a killer blow. Feels like without them there’s too much to replace in one Summer.

Henri Saivet was amazing on FM a tricky winger / striker but for some reason played CM/DM for us. Out of him, Alan Smith and Joelinton, Joes the only crap striker turned great midfielder. The others have been terrible

Alan Smith and Amdy Faye were proper nothing players, added no value at all, was like playing with a man down. Lots in that category, Colback, even Anita was pretty useless.

In hindsight the best sale we’ve ever done, right at the peak of his value. 35m in 2011 is the equivalent of a 80-90m sale today, perhaps even more. It was a British transfer record at the time so perhaps it’s more like 100m. The best thing Dalglish ever did for us, including his two year managerial reign

Osimhen plus David

Seeing Clark and Carroll threads bumped makes me think we’re signing back up home grown players for CL would be progress at this rate