alexf

Still think the kit is gross and is taking the piss now with the whole Saudi shit. Newcastle is its own brand you don't have to make it the same as your country flag to try and make it popular. How fucking simple do you have to be if you are from there to go "oh I like Newcastle now because they play in the same colour as my countries flag" Fuck off.

You know there will be some kind of ridiculous rule change as soon as we ever sell Isak aswell, that either removes the PSR benefit to selling him or makes it so we didn't need to sell him in the first place.

Without sounding like that article posted yesterday, I think people are sleeping on the midfield situation. It's almost taken over the CB problem for me. Purely from a numbers perspective. Bruno has been run into the ground for the last 2-3 years and Joelinton has proven the last few years that he does pick up injury problems as well as suspensions. We always play 3 in midfield and we are asking those guys to put in a massive shift and to; a) not get fatigued b) not get injured and c) not get suspended. The drop off to Miley and also injury prone Willock is huge. Striker and midfielder are essential and then ideally a CB to improve the standard of defenders and replace aging Schar/Burn and cover injury prone Botman. Should have been done last summer but again it gets pushed down the line and in terms of urgency it can probably wait til January now due to other necessities.

Without sounding like the guy in the gif. I feel like this Isak moment has more consequence than just a player going leaving to go to another. It's what it would signify. For me it's all the stuff you listed that has made me disassociate. If after a year of getting CL and finally winning a trophy, we have been forced to sell our best player for less than his value to us and are unable to even use that money to strengthen and move forward. I'm not sure if I can be bothered caring as much as I have last few years. It would be close to an Ashley era apathy. What's the point of trying to get excited about the team if we can't grow and improve due to too many forces pushing against? What was the benefit for us for finishing top 5 last year? If I didn't know any better, based on this summer it's like we finished bottom half. Which is incredibly sad and I didn't think I'd feel that way post takeover era.

Never felt we were in for him. Think our name was used to boost engagement. Hopefully he doesn't turn into a world beater at Man U. Think he's more of a Hoijlund than an Isak.

I'm guessing they made them look hot and sweaty for a reason

The two things can both be true btw and even if none of this Liverpool shit had happened this summer I would still have been concerned regarding his overall fitness going into this season. Whatever that groin problem was last few years it has dogged him for a long time. You can come up with whatever "downing tools" conspiracies you want but he has clearly been plagued with a nagging injury which affects his game. You can tell when he's not affected by it because he looks incredible. The Arsenal cup games the perfect example. He was playing injury free at that point and looked fast and explosive. Switch that to any of those games post missing that league game against Liverpool and you can tell he could barely sprint and it affected his overall game and he was playing at about 50% because of it. I don't think a few weeks off was enough to clear that issue and I think we should have been looking at the surgery option to try and resolve it long term. But if he was leaving anyways then fuck him and I hope it plagues him for the rest of his career undiagnosed.

How is Ashley's incompetence even up for debate? Two inexplicable and avoidable relegations. Selling star players and not replacing. Gutting the clubs of lucrative sponsorship deals during the biggest boom period in football history for the £0 income of advertising his tatty sports direct brand. The desecration of club legends (Keegan, Shearer). Sacking Hughton to hire his mate Pardew. Getting rid of Benitez to hire Bruce. The general neglect and contempt he held for the club throughout etc. FFS why did I bite. Good to know the fire still burns when I think of him.

Will change nothing. Has been mooted before in the media and no consequence. Would be interesting to see all the sales to Saudi so far and what percentage is Chelsea?

I do echo that it will sour the memory of watching back that cup final and seeing him celebrate against them, if we then know 6 months later he forces a move to them. Something very Newcastle about that I suppose. We can't just have a good moment be left untainted

We used to be very critical of the lack of communication under Ashley. But has to be said, the silence from the club recently has been pretty alarming. Has the feeling of a severely understaffed and slightly neglected project of late.

Back to the Ashley eras under Pardew. "If we can get to the window closing without anymore outgoings it will be fantastic"

It's so basic isn't it. Get more money for a year, leave the club a legend and with our goodwill and blessing. Help us win another trophy or/and get CL again and go on to the world cup and then get a big move to a giant club abroad next summer. Nah im gonna tank all the goodwill built up, sour the memories of me for fans forever and undercut the club that took the initial gamble on me and gave me the platform to grow by refusing to train/play to help force the price down so I can move to a domestic rival.

Mentioned before, it's such an easy PR brush under the carpet from the club. Because neither them or him have come out with an official statement. It has been exclusively twitter shite. The only official stance has been from the club stating he has an injury and that Howe wanted to protect him from the speculation so allowed him to skip sitting in the stands of the Celtic game. They also have consistently stated we want him to stay and that he isn't for sale. So all it would take is if he does stay, is we would state that we allowed him to train privately while the club was away on tour to keep away from media speculation in the UK and to rehab his injury. We all know more has been going on behind the scenes, but that would be more that enough for most folks in the ground to get behind him again and for the dressing room to welcome him back in.

Personally I would love him here. Would fit in with our middle 3 perfectly I feel. But I just don't see it for many reasons, such as the one's I mentioned above.

That's true. We are definitely a body language shaming bunch Take Gordon last season as case in point. Would also be weird to see how he would celebrate a goal if he scores. Will piss people off if he celebrates as normal as if nothing happened, but would also massively piss people off if he doesn't celebrate. Bring out the weird Minteh "sorry" celebration Not that it matters, he's very likely still leaving and if he doesn't, he definitely won't play in that Liverpool game and will be unavailable atleast until after 1st September.

Do we really think the club would take a risk with someone with a dodgy betting background again? We have been stung once and you know as soon as we signed him "new evidence" would come out. Also even if none of that was relevant, he wouldn't come to us with others likely sniffing around, plus if he is fully innocent and was close to joining City for £80m previously, why would West Ham suddenly drop that price to £25m? Non starter. Bruno just pleased for his best mate.

That's just 1 signing needed per week before the deadline. Easy. or so you would think.

it's quiet...........too quiet.

Kieran Trippier will miss the next game with tight groin.

if he stays he will be "injured" at least until the window closes I suspect.

as usual, I imagine wages would be the main issue there. Probably on a decent salary at Bayern. But agreed, there are plenty of decent players out there that would give us squad depth but I don't quite get what we are trying to achieve. We are tragically under prepared for this season. Even our own captain admitted at the end of the season that the squad needs help and he hopes to see more numbers and here we are currently with less players in the squad than we finished the season with.

Man city verdict delayed until October

Have maintained throughout that I doubt we were ever truly in for Sesko. But it's another one for the media to beat us up with and claim we've been gazumped by one of the established cartel. The way things are going though I really wouldn't be shocked if Man U finished above us now

We're gonna have a serious problem next year aswell when likes of Trippier , Burn, Schar are even older. We can't keep playing them forever and eventually need to find proper replacements. We have tried and failed to get Schar's long term replacement for two years now. Even if Botman can eventually stay fit and Livramento doesn't get poached by City. We will still need back ups for them.