timeEd32

I think Inter might be the only Italian club that could possibly afford him in a straight cash deal. And would he even go there?

Used to regularly listen 10+ years ago, haven't much recently. So annoying and typical that it went mainstream with a Newcastle supporter involved and then he's got terrible opinions about his own club.

The lack of movement on these projects and how this past summer's window ended up the way it did all point back to the same place -- the leadership at the club has been absent. PIF and Eales deserve at least half the blame being thrown at Eddie.

Probably flying down in the morning, especially with so many away games.

We're in the middle of playing 7 away games (8 total) in 24 days. Games in bold are against clubs top 15 globally in revenue. Nov 22: Man City (h) Nov 25: Marseille (a) - 2 days rest Nov 29: Everton (a) - 3 days rest Dec 2: Tottenham (h) - 2 days rest Dec 6: Burnley (h) - 3 days rest Dec 10: Leverkusen (a) - 3 days rest Dec 14: Sunderland (a) - 3 days rest Dec 17: Fulham (h) - 2 days rest Dec 20: Chelsea (h) - 2 days rest Dec 26: Man Utd (a) - 5 days rest Dec 30: Burnley (a) - 3 days rest Jan 3: Crystal Palace (h) - 3 days rest Jan 7: Man City (h) - 3 days rest Jan 10: Bournemouth (h) - 2 days rest Jan 13: Leeds (h) - 2 days rest Jan 18: Wolves (a) - 4 days rest Jan 21: PSV (h) - 2 days rest Jan 25: Aston Villa (h) - 3 days rest Jan 28: PSG (a) - 2 days rest Jan 31: Liverpool (a) - 2 days rest Feb 4: Man City (a) - 3 days rest Feb 7: Brentford (h) - 2 days rest Feb 10: Tottenham (a) - 2 days rest Feb 14: Aston Villa (a) - 3 days rest Feb 18: Qarabag (a) - 3 days rest Feb 21: Man City (a) - 2 days rest Feb 24: Qarabag (h) - 2 days rest Feb 28: Everton (h) - 3 days rest Mar 4: Man Utd (h) - 3 days rest

Just got annoyed by the draw all over again. Sure would be nice to be playing Salford City at home.

You can be frustrated with the lack of movement in terms of major developments without saying ridiculous things.

On last summer’s evidence it doesn’t seem to matter if we make the CL or not.

It's tricky because you can blame PIF for not trying to do more to circumvent the rules, but also we blatantly wouldn't be allowed to make those sales. And they'd be significantly marked down by UEFA even if we did.

The Edwards question has sent me over the edge. Resurrecting an old Twitter account to counter some of the nonsense (I know this will do nothing).

If the Europa League is the aspiration and you assume we'll not get anything at the Etihad or Emirates then we're pretty much in must win territory.

They spend too much time on Twitter is the problem.

For sure, I'm just saying if it's purely down to sitting around and waiting on PIF I think we'll all sooner be dead. My entire hope now for these things moving forward is based on the narrative around Hopkinson that he is a person who doesn't sit still and makes things happen.

If he's not anywhere near the decision and has no means to pull the right strings to get the green light then a new stadium is never happening.

"If you bring too many players in, that can have a negative impact in terms of upheaval of the team and relationships not forming." countered by... ‘I think freshness is important in a squad, I won’t sit here and deny that. There needs to be a certain element of trading in and out to keep the group dynamic new. A new dynamic and a new team always has to form every season. Sometimes, the same squad can produce a staleness and a negative product.' ----- I would guess our baseline summer (meaning one where we don't lose anyone against our will) will see us add no more than 4-5 new players. It's a little premature given we have a few months of the season left, but I think what we do will be very telling about last summer and this season. Add a GK, RB/CB, CM, and maybe some kind of forward player and I'd say that's his normal approach. He's generally happy with the team, expects development and improvement from the 2025 signings, and thinks this season had some mitigating circumstances. Selling low on a summer signing would be an admission mistakes were made. You could bucket Kelly and, to a slightly lesser extent, Wood into this group from the past. Would we sell Wissa on if someone gave us £30-35m and we had a younger, more exciting alternative? Something more drastic could signal either a change in approach or, more likely IMO, an admission that the team is stale. Maybe on top of replacing Pope, Trippier, Willock, and Osula we sell a couple regulars (Gordon and Joelinton?) for a larger overhaul.

They are in a probationary period, which you could rightly call lenient, but their finances are a disaster.

I'm not sure they could afford Willock and stay out of UEFA's crosshairs.

I still hold out hope that we see a Tonali, Miley, Bruno midfield this season and that it changes everything. But it requires Tino, Hall, and Miley to all be fit at the same time.

We will never make a good signing again. No one still at the club was involved in the signings of Trippier, Burn, Bruno, Pope, Botman, Isak, Gordon, Barnes, Livramento, Hall, or Thiaw.

By "well" I mean more productive for us than Wissa.

You know what probably would have worked well? Nicolas Jackson.

It's hard for any English club to have this expectation at this point, let alone one that is hundreds of millions behind the ones at the top. Eales and Hopkinson have both made it very clear they understand the larger game is being played on balance sheets. It's possible that at some point, with a bad enough run, a decision is made to change managers, but to date they've projected a better understanding of the job Eddie has done than a subset of supporters. And if I were to bet I'd say there is a lot more patience and understanding inside the building than there is on the internet.

Yup, a lot of other problems would melt away if we could just convert some more opportunities.

Absolutely huge for him and potentially us going forward.

I think this theory both overestimates the club's internal expectations at the present time and underestimates how much Eddie prefers his existing players than short term fixes (for better or worse).