Jackie Broon

It could be that one of the options they are considering, or the direction they've decided to take, is something like the Etihad campus so there can't be movement on a new training facility until they've finalised what they're doing about the stadium.

Because we are complying with the PSR and it would be one less club in front of us and if they get hammered they will probably end up challenging the legality of the PSR.

The are also some likely good reasons for lack of visible movement at the moment, like waiting for the outcome of the Man City associated party transactions case and the potential complexity and sensitivity of developing around Leazes Park and/or Terrace.

I think word would probably start to drip out one way or another as things progress.

They don’t need to but there are numerous reasons why it would not in the club's interest to do that until the plans are at a more advanced stage.

Announcing that we are going to move without the details that it's only a few hundred meters and without details of a shiny new development would almost certainly cause an uproar.

If, for example, the outcome is that they have decided to build a new stadium at Castle Leazes they can't just come out and say that. They will need to come to an agreement with the Freemen and any other landowners, go through a design process and pre-application consultation with the Council, and then probably release the news in a public consultation before submitting a planning application to try to avoid the same Friends of Leazes Park situation as in 1997. In that circumstance, if they were just to state their intentions without going through that process first there would be a huge risk of jeopardising that development.

Almost certainly yes.

There were expectations that we would sign a proper 6 going right back to Eddie's first summer. That only went quiet this summer because it's clear that Eddie isn't interested in bringing in a 6. But, people were still seeing that as an issue, and seeing a 6 as our highest priority, even when we were defensively solid.

I don't think Howe sees a defensive midfield player as something he wants or that fits into his philosophy. Maybe if we had the money to go out and get a Rodri it wouldn't matter, but we have to work within the constraints we have and we could have got a defensively minded midfield player in to plug that gaping hole.

Our recruitment has left us set up to play one way, without any defensive midfielder in the squad and that is a gaping hole, particularly in the way we set up away from home. That is entirely by choice.

It goes back a lot longer than that, we've been disjointed for the past year. There has been some big papering over the cracks, but there have been obvious issues since the beginning of last season that have just become more and more apparent.

The planning application was submitted in late December 1997 and approved July 98. Also the Castle Leazes application was submitted in February 97 and the club announced that it was abandoning that plan in late November 97 (although it wasn't actually formally withdraw until January 98). So it seems they must have had the expansion plans drawn up at pretty much the same time as the Castle Leazes proposal, because there's no way that could've been done in a month.

Planning, I'm possibly the only person on here who has actually dealt with a planning application for a football stadium (albeit sub 10,000).

That's a redevelopment of the existing student accommodation, it doesn't involve the moorland.

Just spider senses and Occam's razor, it's the most obvious answer and I don't the planning issues are insurmountable if the Council are on-side.

For what it's worth I have a hunch that they have decided on Castle Leazes, but the announcement of that will have to be very sensitively done and there will be a lot of behind the scenes work before they'll be ready for that.

To be fair, Peter Silverstone said a decision on the stadium was imminent, not an announcement. There may be quite a bit of negotiation and design work to do after a decision before they are ready for an announcement.

That shouldn't really make a difference because it's not a criminal case, so it is balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt.

'Fortuity is our identity' our new slogan?

In my experience, even in cases where they are confident in the case barristers are generally very cautious in terms of likelihood of winning. Even when they are very confident in the case they'll estimate the odds of winning at not more than 60/40. Even if we've had advice that we would have a strong case, the odds would probably be something like 50/50, and that's a big risk to take.

You said a month or two ago that the club hadn't been in touch with the Freemen about Castle Leazes, has something changed on that front... or no comment?

Yeah, he's never going to say that explicitly but he has implicitly a few times.

Yeah, we're not hamstrung at all when it comes to infrastructure and youth level stuff and the progress on long terms stuff for that seems glacially slow.

I think it's probably a case of no smoke without fire, it does seem likely that there are some issues behind the scenes.