bowlingcrofty

Aye fair enough - I'm in.

Who are we going to loan? As soon as we're involved, there'll be outrageous loan fees no doubt.

Sad thing is that essentially the Anderson and Minteh stuff is almost like a previous transfer window. They bear no significance to this one, because they were sold to solve a PSR Issue for last year, not this one. Such are the stupid fucking rules we have to play by.

If an apology is the "least we deserve" then what the fuck is the most we deserve?!

Birmingham are signing a £10m striker in League One. I'm not sure between 500k and 5 million is gonna get you much in that climate sadly. Stupid thing about all of this is that I don't disagree that it's been a poor window - I just disagree with chucking toys out of the pram like petulant bairns when we've been on a steady improvement path for 3 years and we're impeded by the rules designed to impede us.

I'm saying that signing the first team players we need to sign now, to improve the first team, having bought a couple of cheaper players, isn't easy and anything below that is a gamble we can't really afford to make at the prices that those gambles would now be...

Other clubs can improve their first team with cheaper signings, and pay them lower wages because they're not the 'richest club in the world' and therefore having agents try to gouge their fucking eyeballs out. They can then get them moved on easier for the same reason. Man City can do what the fuck they want because they're Man City and the rules either don't apply to them, or were written partially for their benefit.

What changed is that we now have a good first team so signing improvements is much more difficult. The post-takeover equivalents would be better players, obviously, but still would potentially leave us with the same problem. I don't think it's a difficult concept, is it?

They are three perfect examples of players who were signed because they were 'decent signings'. In the situation we're in, where we need to improve our first team, not just fill up the squad, and where we have limited room for manoeuvre because of arbitrary financial rules, signing nobody is preferable to blobbing money on a gamble that backfires and has you bogged down financially for years afterwards.

We should've went for lower targets if we couldn't get our first choices in, imo. We should've been looking at Ryan Fraser, Isaac Hayden and Matt Targett for example. If we'd signed those three, they'd would've done a great job for us as second choices and definitely wouldn't have ended up hanging around too long costing us money on long-term contracts and stopping us from pursuing higher quality players later.

Yeah I just thought the situation should make us realise that strides have been made in this department, big time.

To be fair, we've come a long way. We're now complaining that our adidas-made third shit, featuring the old retro NUFC crest and a huge revenue-generating sponsor, has gone on sale too early on the JD Sports website in Australia. It's only a couple of years ago that our giant number 4 Castore shirt with falling off £2.50 per year gambling sponsorship was launched with a 'form an orderly queue' facepalm tweet and liked by 6 mouth breathers in Byker.

That's Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe.

All the ITKs and local journos who know everything going on inside the club. Not a fucking word from them.

Wouldn't mind it being something like the one on the Gallowgate tbh

Weirdly the white hoodie is only £48 on the official store but £55 on JD

https://twitter.com/NUFC/status/1145611879806582784 Only four years ago.

I'd like to think this is a joke, but even if it actually is, this sort of bullshit needs to stop. Trippier has been one of the most transformative signings in our recent history, and in 33 years of watching NUFC he's comfortably in the top 5 players I've seen play for us. A leader without even being club captain, a genuine bloke with ambition, he has epitomised everything the club wasn't under Ashley. Did he have a few games when he was below his usual standards? No doubt. Is he still a critical part of the club? Absolutely. He's de facto club captain and I love the guy.

Have all the people whinging a) Seen what Stack is and ever been and b) taken into account it's literally a temporary thing until they can do something better with it? I've been to Stack a few times and the whole idea is that it's a reclaiming of shipping containers turned into a drinks place - the one at the bottom of Northumberland St was great. I don't get the hate.

Fair point, yes. My maths has failed me spectacularly today. £55 in 2004 with inflation is £95.60 in 2024 money though...so point still stands.

£30 in 1994 money relates to about £61 in today's money with inflation. I know it seems ridiculous the prices, and I am absolutely not defending them here by any stretch, but they're not as far out of step with everything else, inflation-wise, as it appears.

That’s Company number 05981582 which I don't believe is the proper holding company for NUFC - I think it's the pre-takeover one. Company number 00031014 (NEWCASTLE UNITED FOOTBALL COMPANY LIMITED) - she’s still a director: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00031014/officers -

How can you improve your revenue dramatically with Paul Dummett and Jeff Hendrick on the pitch? There has to be a way for clubs to accelerate the on-field so that the off-field can then catch it up. The clubs who had massive revenue before these rules have been essentially unaffected by them, whereas those who are trying to make up the gap, can't. It's not 'fair play' at that point. It's skewed towards those who already benefitted from the rules not being there who already have the massive revenue to then be able to continue spending once the rules are in place.

How can the starting base be irrelevant when you had two centre halves alone who were worth more than our entire squad on the day of the takeover? We're not just needing to match the big spenders to catch them, we need to significantly outspend them to make up the gap - but we can't, because arbitrary reasons.