The Prophet

His agent has played a blinder.

He's aggregating the link for 365. It's even in the Tweet.

https://www.football365.com/news/newcastle-barcelona-acccept-offer-raphinha-fifth-summer-signing

Agree on value, but he has a very high ceiling if he realises his potential.

Mark Douglas claimed we could have a "surprise" July signing, similar to big Sandro.

While greater revenue gives us more scope to flex our muscled in the transfer market, it's not the be all and all of regular top six finishes. We'll need to be smart, but Spurs have shown with patience and the right people in place, it can be done while the commercial revenue gap is closed.

"Regardless of whether they had managed to get players out before June 30, Newcastle were always going to be able to spend from July 1 — but recouping more than £60million gives them a greater capacity to invest, as that permits breathing space across the new three-year rolling PSR period. With 2021-22, the first season post-takeover, dropping off the books, that means a loss of £70.7m is removed from the calculation. Although a portion of that did not count towards PSR, most did, so there is increased room. What’s more, revenues have increased substantially over the past two seasons and, with the first year of the lucrative Adidas deal — worth between £25m and £40m annually — also being added to the books, Newcastle should be able to strengthen their squad materially. There remain PSR limitations, but Newcastle are no longer shackled and unable to sign players for a fee as they were in January." Chuck some player sales on and we should have a decent amount to spend this summer. Also: "Their priorities are centre-back, right-winger and a forward, although the latter may depend on whether Callum Wilson departs. Newcastle are also pausing and reassessing their recruitment plans following the fallout from the weekend."

From Waugh: "The arrivals of Vlachodimos and Ruddy mean goalkeeper is no longer as pressing a position to fill. For now, at least, Newcastle are not expected to progress with their interest in James Trafford. Talks were opened with Burnley last month for the England international goalkeeper."

Aye.

I can see a scenario where we ship Pope and end up with a new number one.

It was reported by Mandeep Sanghera, who is their Liverpool correspondent.

The exact price will be irrelevant v his position in the pecking order. It was a PSR workaround.

Linked with Alessandro Buingiorno again in the Italian press

Why is it proof we weren't prepared? For all we know, we're so well stocked in LCM, he could have been identified as a sacrificial lamb.

I'm not sure we would have. The sale of Anderson may well have been enough.

Romano has said there was an enquiry, but Liverpool had no intention of coming near our asking price and it went no further. Just Edwards running with this then.

Mark Douglas' take... DID THEY REALLY CONTEMPLATE SELLING ANTHONY GORDON? It depends who you ask. Insiders say the communication with Liverpool over Gordon last week was more “testing the market” for their player of the year, assessing the sort of price he could command, than coming up with a formal proposal or forcing him out of the door. They have been honest about the need for player trading and the fact that everyone in their squad has a price so doing due diligence around one of their most saleable assets when they had a pressing PSR issue was responsible. But it is also alarming that Gordon’s name was being floated a week before a deadline they had known about for months given his huge importance to the way Newcastle play at their best. Liverpool certainly believed there was a deal to be done – indeed sources on Merseyside confirmed the offer over the weekend, indicating it was “not for us” because they had too many wingers.

My thoughts on how arrogant he may be have no impact on my thoughts on him as a journalist.

Always comes off as being massively arrogant.

Man United fans tugging themselves senseless about this. What has football become?

Edwards doubling down with the classic "even if he says he wants to stay, it's a lie"

To be fair, he didn't say his head was turned, but people in the club feared that it could be the case.

Must say, while it's harsh to single him out, Mainoo was poor yesterday. Haven't watched too much of him previously.

There's lots of discrepancies in the narrative over the last 48-72 hours that makes it very difficult to determine exactly what has happened. Most accounts or individuals with knowledge of PSR, had us at a worst case scenario of being £40 million in the red. We're now leaking fears of fees recouped from Minteh, Anderson and Ashworth just about being enough to balance the books. Perhaps the club haven't done too much creative accounting, but it would also imply we didn't full get to grips with our accounts until recently. This is different from what we were briefing as early as May, where deficit of around £20 million was floated. You then had both Chelsea and Liverpool journos writing they'd made opportunitistic moves for Isak and Gordon respectively, but both were unwilling to meet our demands. Yet, we continued to breif journos we were in jeopardy of having to sell one. On top of that, if we were that desperate, surely we'd be more flexible with our asking price? You also have the whole thing being played out in public, with us happy to regularly breif Waugh, Hope, Edwards and Downie about our plight. We generally only put out info we want in the public domain, so why would we want that? Some of the reporting seems at odds what the club has previously breifed and just outright improble in parts. There's definitely an element of smoke and mirrors about it.