Hughesy

Controversial opinion - but I don't actually think he looks that bad... He actually won quite a few flicks on yesterday but there was no one around him.

I haven't really posted much here as I find the whole thing too depressing. Like many, Rafa was the only thing that was keeping me hanging on. However, over the summer, when it seemed Rafa was going, I almost convinced myself that I could carry on if we'd appointed a manager you could get behind and believe in. Although I've come to hate the word, I could have made my peace with a "progressive" manager. To be honest, appointing a management team like the Cowley brothers would have been enough to believe in a project and stay interested. But appointing Steve Bruce was just too much. I don't even hate the bloke and I don't even think he was that bad a manager in the early 2000s. But football's changed now and it's left the likes of Bruce behind. For the first time ever, I just don't care anymore. I'm from the South East so don't go to as many home matches as I used to, but usually try and make 3-4 home matches and all matches in the south east. I haven't been to a game yet this season and my dad asked me if I wanted to go to the Chelsea match. I can't quite bring myself to tell him I don't really care anymore and don't want to go. I fucking hate Mike Ashley.

I feel, Hughesy, that your opinion might be a little biased can't believe someone has seen through my cunning disguise.

Think Aaron Hughes was comfortably better than Dummett.

Maybe I'm biased as I used to play as winger/full back when I was younger, but there's nothing more frustrating as a winger than stretching play as you should and hugging the touchline and then a pass being played way too short. Yes, in an ideal world you anticipate the issue and react, but you've essentially set yourself to receive the ball with a view to opening your body up and going down the touchline. It seems simple, but if you've positioned yourself that way you aren't going to react immediately to set off in the opposite direction to approach a pass that is going to be intercepted. Especially at Premier League level where you have a reasonable expectation that the player making the pass is capable of getting it to you without you having to move towards the ball to win it.

Shit pass. Dummett should be able to weight an unchallenged pass to someone on the touchline without Willems having to move towards him. Yes, Willems should have anticipated it, but it stems from a shit pass.

I dunno, David Luiz has just gone for 8M, really can't see you getting 15M for Gayle. Also, you should probably have appended a qualifying adjective to Joselu too . That's always the mooted figure and seems relatively achievable given the fees paid for strikers. But even so, let's call it 8-12m. We should still be looking to get someone in who is better than Gayle by spending some money. Joelinton - Rondon Perez - Maxim Almiron Joselu - Carrol Muto Gayle Not a bad line up to be fair. Anyone proven from a foreign league is unproven in the PL and anyone prem proven is out of our price range so it's kind of a moot point. I dont see too many proven strikers in any league going for £40m. Joelinton represents a huge gamble by any clubs standards so I can't be mad with the signing in much the same way I wasnt annoyed with the Almiron signing who was equally unproven. If we were to get a CM I'd of actuslly have been happy with this window up until the point I remembered Steve Bruce was our manager. We could definitely spend 25-30m on a striker and improve on Gayle. And we have the cash to do it.

I dunno, David Luiz has just gone for 8M, really can't see you getting 15M for Gayle. Also, you should probably have appended a qualifying adjective to Joselu too . That's always the mooted figure and seems relatively achievable given the fees paid for strikers. But even so, let's call it 8-12m. We should still be looking to get someone in who is better than Gayle by spending some money.

Don't see what's so complicated. We've lost Perez and Rondon and Joselu. We replaced them with the unproven Joelinton, a perma-crock Carroll and proven-to-not-be-PL-standard Gayle. To improve on last season's team, we should, at a bare minimum, be selling Gayle for 15m or so (subsidising his wages, if need be) and buying a quality replacement for the Gayle money plus some of extra funds knocking around. What we've done is a cop out and it's not good enough.

You know Gayle played in the PL before he played for us, right?

Don't have a problem with signing him on a pay as you play deal, but we still need another striker.

Even if ASM and Joelinton are as good as Perez and Rondon - which seems unlikely - we still haven't strengthened the squad in any material respect. You could argue that Willems gives us a more natural left wing back, but Krafth doesn't seem any better than Yedlin or Manquillo. Fucking ridiculous. We should be looking to improve every position possible, whether it's getting a better central midfielder than Shelvey or Ki or getting a better back up striker than Gayle or Muto.

Waugh isn't too bad, but strange they didn't go after Douglas, who I actually think (despite what people say on here) is a decent writer. Some of his longer reads are quite good.

Can't wait to see him repeatedly give away free kicks in dangerous positions this season. Going to be amazing.

Seems a decent article about him here - https://bundesligabulletin.substack.com/p/v2-on-gladbach-sputtering-joelintons

Wonder where Bruce ranks in Ashley's most expensive signings.

16m is way too low. Reckon it should be in the 20-25m range, given other prices for players. He's still got 2 years left in any event.

As a lawyer, KYC can frankly piss off. Shouldn't be a lawyer's responsibility to spoonfeed that shit. Shouldn't even touch our desks. I'm on the banking side, so we don't get much choice. Likewise on the banking side in the legal world, but it's infuriating that it's become our responsibility in the last few years. It takes a hell of a lot of time (and therefore costs a lot) but we never make any recovery on it.

As a lawyer, KYC can frankly piss off. Shouldn't be a lawyer's responsibility to spoonfeed that shit. Shouldn't even touch our desks.

People generally don't incorporate in these circumstances until they need to. I've worked in plenty of processes where the binding bid document simply refers in general terms to 'a UK limited company, to be incorporated in due course' because it saves the hassle of setting one up and then closing it all back down again if the other conditions of the sale are not fulfilled. I'd disagree with that slightly. I agree that in a normal bid scenario you would establish the company and acquire within a few days. However I've seen clients establish just to reserve the name and then never use the company again. It's really not that much hassle - it costs £40 to incorporate a company (£120 same day) and not much more to terminate. For large corporates that's less than 15 minutes of legal fees. Not going to hugely disagree, but you're probably going to use bespoke articles so it might cost a little more.

Totally agree. In any event, I thought Ashley was using Dentons as his lawyers, so Pinsents will probably be acting for the buyer - I think they do this type of transaction anyway (mid market type work with a sports angle sometimes).

I am slightly surprised at some of the timelines in the press about how long it will take to close the deal (not commenting on the Premier League checks as I have no idea about those). Given the relative simplicity of the business of NUFC and the fact that it would appear that no debt is being utilised for the acquisition, it shouldn't take that long to agree an SPA and get the deal done - obviously caveated by how willing the parties are to complete the deal.

Should raise his asking price a bit.

I think central midfield is our real opportunity to push the squad on if we invest (ha ha) some serious cash. We don't seem to have really managed to consistently get a decent blend of creativity, stamina and defensive solidity - which is obviously going to cost money. Obviously Longstaff has shown great potential, but I don't think we should be going into next season relying on him maintaining that level of performance or as an automatic starter. If Rafa stays and has any kind of budget, I'd love it if he focussed the bulk of the money on the central midfield. Unearth the modern Rob Lee from somewhere...

Always been quite impressed with Billing from Huddersfield whenever I've seen him play. Wouldn't mind seeing him come, given we probably need to replace Shelvey, Hayden and Diame.