Gottlob

Does anyone have a strong sense of what the situation actually is with regard to our finances? Like is a second striker this window dependent on us selling Isak now or at least before next summer's PSR deadline? Are we already at the point where he needs to be sold in light of the Woltemade deal? I guess we're just over £200 million spent and have brought in probably no more than £20 million through Longstaff, Dubravka and maybe a couple of small loan fees. We do need two forwards for the season and I'd love another midfielder.

♫ He can pull himself back up back down Stuck together like a Woltemade ♫

He's a magic mountain at six feet and six inches but he's no superman and is in fact something of an idealist. The romantic in me would love him to succeed and I've been banging my tin drum about him all summer but I hope we're not striking a Faustian bargain by allowing Isak to leave. With the best will in the world a young striker new to the league left to stress on his own up top could lead to a very grim outcome. But in the end us football fans are dreamers so for the time being we can cast aside never mind critique pure reason.

Amorim seems like a nice guy and from my own perspective he's doing one helluva job at Manchester United, but I bet he can scarcely believe that he's still employed and wishes he could go and rebuild his career someplace else. I just had a quick scan of Redcafe and the funniest thing I saw was one poster who seems adamant that Mbeumo should be converted to a right wing-back.

Today a decent Premier League player with a bit of upside who still has the better part of their career ahead of them seems guaranteed to cost you at least £35-40 million. You then start to creep up in value depending on their productivity or attacking flair, with strikers at a premium. I'm not surprised that Larsen is going to cost something like £60 million if we do manage to get him, especially since it's late in the transfer window, we are desperate and Wolves only signed him to a permanent deal earlier in the summer. I don't think we've been especially proactive or imaginative in the transfer market when it comes to replacing Wilson or Isak, but at this point if we were to end up with two from Larsen then Isak, Wissa or Jackson I think we'll have made a fair job from a bad situation. It would give us a nice blend of options, Larsen isn't going to miss time through the Africa Cup of Nations and I reckon Howe would be pretty pleased to have a target man who he could build around even as a temporary fix or fallback. The difference between a 12-16 goal Premier League striker and someone who can reliably get you 20-plus goals seems to be the difference between labels like 'decent' or 'average' and 'world class'. Since Isak arrived at the club we have scored 68, 85 and 68 league goals so even at his most prolific and our least prolific he's scored no more than a third of our total in a given season. It is a team game and if he goes or proves otherwise unavailable, ideally you make up the numbers by having two forwards who can rotate or make an impact from the bench while also playing in the wingers and midfielders. On the other hand our wingers have produced stellar numbers in terms of goals and assists playing alongside Isak, so even if he's not the best at pressing or holding up the ball his movement and finishing seems to have helped everyone out. As always it's fine margins. Our moves for Larsen and Wissa seem far from guaranteed and if we end the summer with only one striker it will feel like an unmitigated disaster.

Typing with a degree of irritation, but I feel like it's rarely the sum of its parts. I rate Tonali and Bruno so highly but I feel like we're too often lacking at both ends of the pitch. I'd have signed an experienced defensive midfielder and a youngster with creativity rather than Ramsey who is a good player but might be more of the same.

Worse than Isak in a way, who at least is sulking on the sidelines and allowing us to face teams with a full complement of eleven players.

If it's a work I hope we start the match with ten men and let the commentators be like 'What are Newcastle doing?' and 'Who's going to be the eleventh man?' for the first fifteen or twenty minutes. Then after Pope has just pulled off his third world-class save and we appear to be on the ropes, out comes Isak! Maybe he's wearing a Liverpool tracksuit or something and slaps hands with a few Liverpool fans only to unzip and there's a Newcastle United jersey! Oh my god! And he's just wrecked Slot with a massive clothesline!

Fantasy's not my cup of tea but if we're going based on names I still like the sound of Vangelis Pavlidis.

Really started to feel with some clarity over the past twenty-four hours or at least since waking up this morning that we should be grabbing Jackson for £50 million and Strand Larsen for £60 million and giving it the old heave ho for this season.

Got to be Josha Vagnoman, although until now I always thought his first name was Joshua.

It's probably nothing to do with his first name or middle name but his confirmation name. A popular one is 'Jumping Jehoshaphat'.

If we sell Isak for -30, then Chelsea will sell us Jackson for -70? Might be worth thinking about since Chelsea are probably more of a direct rival.

Howe has built a real sense of team spirit at the club, it's a place where players can thrive and many of them seem to have bought in to that and consider themselves at home in the area. But at the end of the day you're going to struggle to keep your very best players for long if you're paying them half or a third of what the top clubs can offer. Isak's statement taken at face value confirms what has been obvious, which is that he feels aggrieved at the club for some broken promise. Our bid for Ekitike and Liverpool's response seems to have set him off, so I assume that while we were in fact trying to secure Isak's replacement we were still playing hardball and telling other clubs that he wasn't available. The club will gain nothing from teaching Isak a lesson. We reintegrate him into the team or we sell him for a good fee and find a solution.

Speed in football is an odd metric. So much relies on anticipation, reaction times and those first few strides. I'm sure I've read for years that first Dummett and now Botman are among the fastest players around at least when they get up to speed. On the other hand Elanga apparently registered a 10.93 over 100 metres from a standing start which sounds positively lethargic.

It's really my moment because if we're debating the merits of Gordon vs. Osula as our starting forward heading into a Champions League season, then Adam Armstrong is surely back in contention.

I mean Isak only scored 23 league goals last season. Just need three strikers who can manage eight goals apiece and we'll be in a healthier position.

Since the start of this saga I've always presumed that a big new contract and maybe a release clause are prerequisites for getting him back involved. That becomes harder when you start to miss games but we're still not in an unprecedented situation: it feels fairly common for players to want a big move, come back late from pre-season, maybe mess about with their social media accounts and even miss the first few games before giving up and reintegrating with the squad. Right now our striker search seems to have gone from desperate to dead in the water, and I'll add that after all of the moves that have been made this summer - Pedro, Ekitike, Sesko, Gyokeres, David, Osimhen, Delap plus the likes of Larsen, Guessand and Kalimuendo - I don't see the situation being much more hospitable for us next summer.

We initially bid £25 million and have been chasing him for a month so if we're now being quoted £50-60 million it suggests that we've completely misread the situation or they've upped the price, either because it's getting late in the transfer window or because they've been forced to go higher for potential replacements. Anyway I'm not sure why people keep talking about Wilson replacements for us. The club will be chasing any striker who they think can lead the line and unless Isak goes I think we will settle for one player. I'm not sold on Ramos with regard to his ability or availability, Watkins is surely unavailable, and Jackson has his merits but Saturday suggested to me that we need somebody with a bit of finishing and smarts rather than a headless presser. I haven't followed Toney's availability and however unlikely perhaps we could test Palace with an offer for Mateta that would allow them to keep hold of Guehi and Eze for another season. It's really slim pickings at this point especially if we're not prepared to take a punt abroad. Somebody suggested a Greek or Turkish forward with a good name and maybe he's as good as any.

Would anyone have taken £200 million plus Elliott for Isak and Gordon if it had meant us signing Ekitike? Could have probably got Trossard for £20 million or something to pad us out.

As a few people have said his pace and power and ability to receive the ball and beat his man on the outside gives us real balance whoever is on the left flank, and I think he's going to be a good player for us. But last season I'd say that Murphy was our most creative wide player, not only putting in good crosses but playing some nice balls from deep as the season progressed, and that isn't really a quality we need less of.

He's probably feeling the pressure, aware that he's the only player in the squad who can be expected to finish.

I agree it's great that we can go to Villa on the opening day and smother them, and we probably shouldn't take too much more from the match. Obviously we need a striker, but for a cynic like me it's the sort of game which makes me wonder whether Elanga and Ramsey were our best options in the transfer market. We have plenty of pace and pressing and athleticism but we are still lacking that bit of guile. I though Tonali was immense and we tidied things up nicely at the back but Bruno, Joelinton and the front three were sloppy on the ball far too often.

It's annoying to watch that first half and see such a strong team which is only really lacking a top striker. We already have a strong first eleven and with Isak and say Wissa for backup we'd maybe be a midfielder away from a squad with no real holes that could genuinely challenge on all fronts this season. We are set up for him to flourish. I do think we are a better team with him in it though he doesn't press as well or help us play out from the back, nor does he continually stretch the opposition defence with his movement and anticipation. If you add Jackson to Elanga and Gordon we'd smother teams but might set some sort of record for spurned chances. Of course he's been one of the top three goalscorers in the league over the past couple of seasons and is paid something like £120,000 a week whereas Salah and Haaland are getting between £400,000 and £500,000. For all the talk about standing our ground and setting a precedent, the same sort of situation could easily happen again if we want to attract top talents but can't compete with the top clubs on wages. It's also worth pointing out that Wissa for £40 million would take our summer spending to something like £175 million. That's before another quality midfielder who would be a must if we were to let Miley go out on loan. I don't know whether we have that kind of money without selling Isak.

Ideally I think you'd have six for the midfield given our long season, especially with Joelinton, Willock and now Ramsey having a history of picking up injuries. On the other hand Tonali and Bruno seem very durable, but as things stand Miley is the obvious replacement for both. If we loan him out we'll need to sign a real workhorse or someone with lots of experience who can slot in. Lots of people myself included have wanted a creative player who can play between the lines, but I think it might be more practical to have someone with experience who can help cover the defence.