The Prophet

"I don't think the window worked out exactly the same format that we thought it would," Parish said. "Maybe we thought at the beginning it'd be more likely that Marc Guehi went and we kept Joachim Andersen. "We accepted that bid [for Andersen] which then made it very difficult really to sell both of our starting centre-backs in one window. "That's not to say it wasn't still an outside possibility that we got to the right number but then Chadi Riad got injured. That doesn't look quite as bad as it seems but it still left us very light and really made it impossible for us to consider at that point.” "We're proud of the fact that Michael Olise's gone to Bayern Munich. “We want to be selling to the top clubs, or top clubs like Newcastle who've got great aspirations and have recently been in the Champions League. "So we have to manage all of those things. We won't get really great young talent to come to us if they think they're going to be stuck. "We want to be playing in the Champions League. The reality is we don't right now. That's what players want to achieve in their career and we respect that and we respect the fact that sometimes we're going to be a pathway to that."

Seemingly loves sticking their best players in the shop window.

Perhaps they currently feel there's enough headroom to grow into, without challenging the rules?

Fair, so your take is that you'd like to see us challenge and exploit the rules more, say like a Chelsea?

While I agree with some of that. They've bought us just under three years ago and inherited an absolute mess. Man City were bought pre-PSR. They already had the City of Manchester Stsdium built. The plans for the Etihad Campus were released almost exactly three years after their takeover. The City Group wasn't established until nearly four and a half years after they were taken over. While I'd fully expect progress, particularly on the stadium front, in the next year these things take time. Even longer when purchase a post-Mike Ashley shell of a club, playing catch-up while trying to comply with PSR.

Yep, if anything they'll prioritise their domestic market.

Folk need to stop thinking about PIF as your average firm with regular jointed-up decision making. They're a public investment fund, that oversee multiple portfolios and projects. We're a small, albeit well known fish, in a large pool of investments. Very little thought will be going into "if we invest in a, it might have a knock on effect on b". It'll be more or less passive investment across the board.

1-1 anyone?

He might just not be very good. You'd think he'll go out on loan again this season though.

While I agree we generally limited them to speculative shots from outside the area, that miss from Odobert at the back stick was criminal.

Makes me sad you get fewer and fewer of these mavericks in the game now.

Also on the training ground sponsor:

Lots of chat about Gordon in contract talks, but wasn't Isak at the beginning of the summer. I wonder if it's been agreed and they're waiting to announce it.

Roy Keane was rambling on about Howe's body language. Any idea what he was talking about?

All good points.

Decent read. Someone else will need to work their magic with the link.

Thought the timing if the Tonali sub was alright. Gave the crowd a lift and brought fresh legs into the midfield. Taking account of the game plan it was noticeable we started and finished strongly again, following the subs. Clearly some of the lads still need more gametime to get up to speed.

From the Athletic: More worryingly, Newcastle’s passing accuracy is a lowly 74.3 per cent — the worst in the division. In the opposition half, it is just 65.6 per cent, better only than Everton’s 65.2. Against Tottenham, both figures were even lower, at 71.3 per cent and 60.8 per cent respectively. Their attempted passes total of 930 is the lowest in the Premier League this season. Same for the 691 passes they have completed. Without labouring the point it's the biggest area of improvement for me. Particularly with a few away games coming up.

PIF are most likely pleased with Eales because the club, their investment, continues to increase in value. Apparently PIF are over for a standard annual review, so you'd imagine progress in commercial revenue, the stadium, navigating PSR, working relationships and improving the first team squad will be covered. The idea he's going to be peddled over a bad transfer window is fantasy land. If things begin to stagnate across the board over the next year, it might be a different story.

He's not had a bad start of the season at all, but even in his limited minutes, Sandro looks different gravy.

Been planned for a while by all accounts.