Novocastrian

If we are to prosper in this league we’ll need to work with the current ‘top 6’ and the sooner those clubs realise we are coming onboard, invited or not, the smoother those relationships will be. It looks like the ownership, in particular Amanda and Mehdad, are kicking off a hearts and minds campaign and the recent visit to Chelsea shows we are working on those relationships. Playing hardball with Man Utd over a 34 year old reserve keeper might be what we’d all like to do but it does us no favours in the future. This is realpolitik.

Never a red, an example of us being generally a yard slow than Wolves all across the park.

Because we’ve maxed out our budget for this window? Whether that’s a self imposed limit by the owners or not it seems likely the Isak money (which may have been earmarked for 2 x players prior to Wilson’s injury) is as much as they want to spend for now.

Man Utd can fuck off after the Lingard debacle in January.

Shefki Kuqi like Ronaldo R9 compared to Frank Pingel or Tony Cunningham.

Getting a feeling we aren’t going to pursue Pedro now. Think there was a bit more to do and now we’ve went for Isak we’ll leave this.

That’s one approach but Pedro seems very advanced. Do we let Everton take over and fight WHU for Paqueta?

I think Pedro plus a ‘marquee’ player was always on the cards. Not sure they wanted to pull the trigger on an elite striker in this window until Wilson’s injury. We’ve obviously shifted the priority. Maybe we’ll come for Maddison next summer.

Before we were forced to bring in Isak to cover Wilson’s injury? Can’t see us bringing in Isak, Pedro and another £40m player.

Does this mean Paqueta’s not coming

Ooh-Ah Jan Aage!

Load of players? No, just two attacking players would do me before the window closes. I’d go for a CAM and a forward who can play through the middle or out wide. I’m sure the hierarchy will manage that before the window closes but it’s frustrating to be two matches in with no progress yet. Howe is so methodical when integrating new players we might be 8 or 9 games in before we have new players in starting positions. That’s my worry.

Brighton have never spent over £20m on a player. We’ve already caught up, we now should be leaving them behind. They’re a good team but even this season we should be pushing ahead.

Brighton are a tidy team, well organised, arguably punching significantly above their weight. Ashley didn’t even care about matching a Brighton who are very close to reaching their ceiling. Are we trying to match Brighton or are we aiming higher?

Bad look IMO to be sat in the dug out when your team is 4-0 down. At the very least he should be on his feet, in his technical area, excoriating his team for the remainder of the game.

It’s a decent point for sure. Brighton showed last week they are a good team. There’s still time, I just hope we can bring in a couple of attackers to mix it up.

A touch of hyperbole? I’ve not seen anyone say we should be challenging for top 4. We should, in my opinion, be challenging for the peripheral European places. We need to make improvements in the final third to make that happen and we’ve now played two games without any attacking reinforcements. We finished mid-table last season and as such could reasonably be considered to be a year ahead of schedule now. Top 7/8 is ambitious but absolutely within the scope of this team as long as we can bring in a couple of quality additions. To not try and achieve that would be a dereliction of duty for me, considering the ownership group have ambitions to be an elite club.

He’s a bit slow and ponderous on the ball, even Colback ‘sacked’ him.

8th as a minimum.

I can't see the window up to now as anything but underwhelming. Maybe the new owners will put something out of the bag but we are now nailed to line up with only Botman and possibly Pope as new players for the first PL game of the season. Before anyone pisses their knickers, yes I know the window is still open but managers want players in as early as possible, Rafa would be doing his nut in now as he always wanted time to fully integrate new players.

Mark Mcghee V Bradford Yes, was at this game. Also remember a last minute winner against Oxford scored at the Leazes by Gavin Peacock to win the game 4-3.

I can’t see why Broja would come on loan when we have Wilson as a starter. I thought he was more of an out and out forward. Can he play wide. Didn’t Howe play with two strikers at Bournemouth (Wilson/King) albeit with one in a withdrawn role? Would both play together? He seems to want guaranteed game time.

I’m a massive beer snob, can’t even comprehend people drinking Budweiser, Fosters etc. when you can be plugging into some Belgian abbey beers for instance.

I’ve often seen him do something really smart in a game and thought that was great! Then on closer inspection realised it was someone else.

He doesn’t even win that many headers in reality.