Ash

Just now, Ikon said:

 

Would be a bigger coup definitely. Also cheaper wages as well i'd imagine.

And cheaper transfer fee. 

Wouldn't surprise me if he got crocked as a result of Caicedo leaving one on him. Seemed to be struggling for quite a while after that tackle. 

3 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

 

Turns 23 next month. Wharton was 20 when Palace took a punt.

He's a late bloomer. More interested in his quality than his age. 

1 minute ago, HawK said:

 

I don't think there's any we should be buying, we should be looking at players like Wharton imho

Hayden Hackney could fit that bill. 

33 minutes ago, Sempiternal said:

Perhaps they could spend money updating our academy? What happened to that? 

How it's relevant to this topic I have no idea but what an odd thing to level at them. 

3 hours ago, TheDarkKnight said:

 

Trawl my posts.

 

Scotland fan here.

 

I told you all that Scott McTominay wasn't a no 6. I said that his best attribute was finishing and I told you that Newcastle should've signed him.

 

I was mocked.

 

I remember someone here saying that he was a league 2 player

 

Yeah. Well. That "league 2 player" is on the cusp of winning Serie A and winning the player of the year award.

 

All the best.

 

In the space of two years, it’s now less embarrassing to refer to yourself as a Scotland fan than a Man Utd fan. Amazing. 

Really hope we're in the market for a CM in the summer, regardless of any of the current crop leaving. 

Been said a lot but we really need to raise our technical floor and a different profile to what we currently have is vital. Would love us to make a play for Angelo Stiller from Stuttgart but imagine there'll be plenty of interest in him.

26 minutes ago, PRL said:

Sadly it is. £9m for their coefficient payment and £3.5m participation prize, as well as other prizes per win and draw. All in (according to ChatGPT at least) they’re about £45m to the good from the run to date. Which is pretty nuts. Stand to lose about £15m on PL placing and the £50m or so from the CL last season, but if they went on to win the Europa League they’d likely have better revenue than last season. 

Good website here. 
 

Really highlights the importance of making the UCL and how much progression out of the opening stage is worth. 

4 hours ago, Froggy said:

 

That's just for winning the final. We made over £20m in the group stage from prize money alone.

 

These tournaments are worth a fortune to teams.

It’s nowhere near that.  

Pep was really worried about this game and you could see by his actions on the touchline early on with his over-the-top encouragement/praise towards his defenders. The last thing they needed was to face a decently-rested NUFC side that went full-throttle at them and pressed them off the park. And we’ve turned up to park the bus and offer nothing going forward with Murphy at RB and Trippier at CB. Absolutely baffling how we’ve set up here. They’ve been so bad at the back for the past few months, so vulnerable, and we’ve rocked up and allowed them to run us ragged without laying a glove on them. 

So disappointed in Howe today. Set us up to fail.  

Very reassuring to have someone as astute as Mitchell leading the way on the football side of things. This window was extremely telling and although people won’t want to hear it, he’s done a great job of ensuring we are in a stronger position in the medium to long term thanks to shifting two fringe players. I’ve no doubt we’ll see more outgoings in the summer too and not just the out of contract players either which should allow us to have a big window. It would have been very easy for him to get twitchy fingers and push the button on a signing this window but he’s held his nerve and by all accounts, never had any intention of wavering which really highlights how much belief he has in his strategy to move us forward. 

1 minute ago, SUPERTOON said:

This discussion really does highlight how poorly we built the squad tbh.

And this is ultimately what Mitchell was getting at but people took it the wrong way. 

Plenty to go at in that letter sent by Man City but this snippet in particular is very telling on where they stand... 

"The tribunal has declared the APT rules to be unlawful. MCFC’s [Manchester City’s] position is that this means all of the APT rules are void, and have been since 2021."

18 minutes ago, bobbydazzla said:

Canny finish that by Rigg, quick thinking and creativity 

Really hope we try and get him signed in the next year, he’s going to the very top. 

31 minutes ago, McCormick said:

He was literally one of if not the worst goalkeeper they’ve had in Benfica’s history  . I try not to entertain hyperbole but I can’t stress highly enough how bad a player the guy is.

On 20/08/2024 at 16:10, McCormick said:

I’ve said this before but he’s legitimately not even as good as Gillespie, let alone Dubravka. He’s a really awful keeper.

On 15/08/2024 at 15:28, STM said:

 

Why the fuck would we want Mbuemo for 60m? 

I’d hazard a guess that he’s pretty much the perfect profile of what Howe would want from a winger, other than lacking a bit of height. He’d be a brilliant signing for us. 

4 hours ago, Tiresias said:

 

Sort of true but I sense Brentford are in a bit of a decline. Had them going down this season, could well be way way wrong with that but people forget how rubbish they were for large parts of last season. They lose Toney and their replacement out for most the year can see them doing a Leicester and go down with a squad that looks way too good to. 

Their injury issues were about on par with us last season, if not worse. Massive amount of players missing as well as several key players out with long-term injuries too. 

16 minutes ago, Tiresias said:

 

Yeah fuck commas.

 

It's clearly not nonsense, think if we have a bad start we are going to give him another season not bothering champions league with our PSR nonsense issues? And again Howe is great, this is not going to happen but I can understand why bookies have him as a favourite. 

I’m not sure you do considering you’ve failed to name the main reason why he’s favourite. 

18 minutes ago, BermyToon said:

So, zero goals in 21 PL games and we will pay £15M for him? Why not just give Kuol a chance instead?

Jesus H Christ. 

9 hours ago, Unbelievable said:

Agree with most of that, but Huijsen is exactly the type of player we should be looking at for that position, i.e. a very promising albeit a bit raw central defender, who can already do a job and has the potential to be a starter long term. Every transfer carries a risk, but I think Huijsen at 12m will be seen as a bargain over time. He has the Spanish national team and the Dutch national team fighting over which he will represent in the future already (Spain winning).

Haven’t seen enough of Huijsen specifically to be able to comment but he may not be the positional profile we’re looking for. I also think we’ll go bigger on the CB, someone a bit more first team ready who can come in immediately and make an impact whereas I think Huijsen, simply because of his lack of experience, would be viewed as more of a project over the next few years. We still have more pressing concerns in the first team squad that we have to fill before looking at this type of signing. 
 

Bournemouth have recruited very smartly over recent years so I’m sure he’ll be a good signing for them and he may turn into an excellent player in time but I’ll back our recruitment team to get our CB signing right. We probably only have the budget for one CB and we need someone who can hit the ground running (in Howe terms). 

41 minutes ago, kingxlnc said:

Sometimes I feel NUFC are too perfectionist and trying to get the perfect player when all they need is an improvement across the board.

You can't raise the ceiling with every signing. For example for RCB, that Hujisen that Bournemouth signed, it was 12.8m. No brainer for a 19 year old with the same passing range profile as Schar. Schar can still be first choice and Hujisen can be back up. Milenkovic at Forest would be another in the same price range. Would have solved the position, with Botman due to come back as well as Lascelles, and Kelly and Burn who can slot in too. We would have 3 RCB and 3 LCB. Job done with little damage done after Tosin fell through.

 

For the RW, literally Chiesa is available for 25M. Even if thats another 10m committed in wages,  it makes sense, especially if we get rid of Almiron for that amount. I do understand he would expect to start so maybe he is not quite right. Matias Soule was also available for that amount, as a back up RW,  sure. Chiesa and Soule for 50M would sort out that RW for less than the price of Olise. 

If you want to go big, a Kubo (and all the additional income he would bring) would be available for the Olise money. 

For back up striker, Ben Bereton Diaz was a good third choice, we could even keep Wilson as No. 2. 

That would have sorted out the entire window for us, and probably even left enough money for a James Trafford. 

Being perfectionist (or as close to it as possible) is exactly how we should be operating and how we have to operate. Just bringing in players to simply improve on what we have now doesn’t work as we’re then in the same situation a year or two down the line when they then need replacing and we can’t shift them on because of the salary they’re on or the price we want to improve our PSR position.

If PSR wasn’t a thing then bringing in Huijsen (if he matches the positional profile we’re looking for) maybe happens at that price point but he might not tick enough boxes. If he did, I’m sure we would have made a move for him at that price but I’m guessing we have someone more suited and more transformational lined up. For what it’s worth I’d like to see us sign some younger players in that kind of price range to pad the squad out, especially next year when we’re likely to lose several players. At the minute, though, it simply isn’t possible because of our PSR restrictions. 

Every penny we spend has to be accounted for and needs to represent value for us in not just the short-term but also medium to long-term. Using Chiesa as an example is actually ironic as that is exactly the type of deal we should be avoiding. His wages are probably on the high side of what we want to be paying and there’s also huge doubts about his fitness and quality these days. If we sign him on a four-year deal and he flops, that’s an expense we cannot afford to carry year-on-year. 

This season’s PL handbook has been released here. 
 

Anyone fancy trying to find any mention of the APT rules?  

5 minutes ago, STM said:

I'll repeat what I said last time, people kept saying he'd be back in the new year, which I said was bollocks.

 

He will back alot sooner.

Based on what? 

50 minutes ago, The Butcher said:

We've appointed a class Sporting Director and the first thing some care about is the lack of ITK's