ponsaelius

Exactly. And their nonnas. Probably already begrudges having had to move from Sardinia to Milan, nevermind upping sticks to northern England.

Barella is already on 150k a week and the tax situation is more generous for professional athletes than it is in the UK. To give a significant salary increase you are looking at probably 250k+ a week. We are not at that stage of offering those kind of wages and even if we are I don't think it's a good idea to use money only as main convincing point. It's why I don't think this is ever going to be a goer personally (in addition to the fact Inter will want a decent bit more than £50 million). Milan is a great city to live as a footballer. Passionate footballing city, but not fanatical and oppressive to the degree where you can't go out and about. Great food/culture/nightlife, can live outside the city and have easy access to the lakes etc.

Think his priority is basically Argentina and having an easy life now, tbh. He can probably extend his international career a bit longer if he's coasting at club level. Easier to get to qualifiers too from Miami.

He had that bad injury for Leeds and then basically didn't play last season. Two years of not really playing football. It can be hard to get your mojo back after that. I'd heard from Leeds supporters that him coming to us was a done deal for ages before Man City swooped. I understand ego and wanting to not be seen to 'fail' at City but to me it seems more likely he becomes a Fabian Delph than a Fernandinho and he should probably look to move somewhere he will definitely play.

He did his ACL and was out for nearly a year. Great player but a lot of his game was his pace and work rate. Italy have not had much luck with players getting serious injuries - Zaniolo doing both knees consecutively has massively curtailed his original potential too.

Sardinian not Sicilian. But otherwise I think pretty accurate.

If City got Rice I'd imagine we'd be back in for Phillips.

City offered De Rossi a king's ransom to move to City under Mancini and he contemplated it but ultimately didn't. That's the closest I can really remember. They all appreciate the lifestyle and the weather too much, and are basically mostly little nonna's boys. I can see Inter as sellers (but not at £50 million - too cheap) but convincing the Sardinian Inter fan to commit to NUFC is fanciful IMO. He's already on money that would be the top end of our pay bracket too.

Brazilian and Swiss tbf. There has definitely been few. But very few top class Italian midfielders have ever moved to England. I can't think of any. It's why I can't see this transfer happening at all personally.

Doesn't count club grown, no.

He's Brazilian tbf.

I'd be amazed if this was a goer at that price tbf.

Genuinely world class player. Would be amazed if it's true.

Wow.

Yeah, goes without saying really. Just looking at the attendance last time we played them in 2015. 5258 - well below a sell out. Which is mad when you think it might as well be a home game.

Gateshead probably fall short of the kind of attendances they need to support the club at the level they're at. Need closer to 2k really - despite being up to around 1300 last year. If they could have one of these selling out every summer it gives them a bit more breathing space I'd imagine.

That's canny for Gateshead. They've got Sunderland the week before too which is already selling well. Should be a decent money spinner for them and to be honest it would be good if they could become an annual occurrence.

Yeah I think he's possibly been pitched too highly as well. Feyenoord don't have a B team in the Eerste either if he was on the periphery.

Like I say, I didn't say we shouldn't do it. It's definitely a sensible transfer policy for the club - particularly with FFP and where we are right now in terms of infrastructure. Just don't think it's particularly great for football and certainly don't think it's good for young players when they're bought up en masse at this age profile and farmed around on loan as primarily a money making scheme with the off chance they might actually be good enough to play for you. Loan your own academy players out, sure. Sign young players for the first team picture, great. But the cynical nature of the buy and immediately loan out 18-21 bracket is a shitty example of modern football business.

At the end of the day it's basically an unintended consequence of FFP that clubs will operate this way. And we are going to have to do it. But it's shite IMO and frequently not the best thing for many footballers' development.

On the one hand happy to see the wheels of us becoming an actual proper footballing operation clicking into gear and making signings like this. He looks a talented boy and a very similar profile to Kuol. On the other hand I find these kind of transfers a bit depressing, to be honest. Plucked from Denmark and sent off to the Dutch champions before he's even stepped foot in NE1. A punt on a market opportunity. Genuine chance he might never play a game for NUFC. Instead just shunted around Europe for 3-4 years on various loans until he reaches an optimum value to be cashed in on to offset FFP for other players we want to sign. I'd find it a bit shit if I was a Feyenoord fan too, tbh. This is historically the kind of player a Dutch club would sign directly - then at least get the benefit from when they sell him on like Odense have done. Instead the usual transfer food chain is broken in a cynical way to benefit those at the top.

It's just the top of the N blending into the I isn't it? Plus I don't really agree that the players issue is better quality. It's a stick on badge rather than embroidered directly the the material.

I know Leeds were a basketcase at times but I honestly thought Koch was one of the worst players I've ever seen in the PL.

Yes this is a reasonable summary. Sunderland is a town that grew larger out of the industrial revolution. Newcastle was a medieval centre that was also well placed for the industrial revolution when it came - so has architecture and an urban pattern that reflects this history. Sunderland as a 'city' rather than a large industrial town is basically a modern gerrymandering exercise. The city boundaries include an entirely separate New Town in Washington and distant pit towns like Houghton le Spring, Hetton-le-Hole etc. It's not really a city in any logical sense. It's basically the inverse of Newcastle where a large and contiguous urban area actually sells itself short on a national level by being divided up into different councils. That's not to say Sunderland isn't completely without merit as a place. There's still good Victorian and Edwardian architecture in Sunderland like many other industrial towns in the UK. I would also say that I actually think Sunderland Council are doing to a lot to instigate positive redevelopment in Sunderland. The plans for the resi development on the civic centre is the kind of thing a lot of towns and cities across the UK should be doing for example - while the Riverside development should be a huge positive.

Still need to for PL squad tbf.