Froggy

One day closer to the glassing.

Romano might post like crazy, but him and Ornstein are very, very rarely wrong. Ornstein is super respected, and Newcastle fans have only turned him on this summer because everything he's posted about the club has been negative. That's not his fault.

No we weren't. As reported by Ornstein and Romano, we were never in for Gyokeres but were offered the chance to bid by "intermediaries" and declined. We were never in for Ekitike. Delap chose Chelsea over us though 100%, and I couldn't be happier about that. He was definitely the #1 option at striker for us this summer. You reckon Arsenal were happy dropping £52m on Madueke but bulked at £13m more for someone 3x as good as him? Mbeumo only wanted United. Simple as that.

Just got in before me James.

Well our main problem was goals. So they've went out and signed two of the best players in the league and one of the highest rated young strikers on the continent. Minimal fuss. We took a lot of time with Mbeumo because he only wanted us, so we could afford to hash it out until we were happy. All three of them on decent wages as well, instead of being handed £300k. That's an achievement compared to what we've done in the past. Huge pressure on Amorim now though. We won't accept a mediocre attack with a team that consists of Fernandes, Amad, Mbeumo, Cunha and Sesko.

INEOS get no credit for this kind of things, but they've put an extremely competent executive structure in place with the likes of Berrada, Wilcox and Vivell. Woodward would have fired £200m at Leipzig for this.

I keep seeing this, but your offer was €80m+€5m in add-ons. Ours is €76.5m+€8.5m in easy add-ons. Romano has said it's basically €85m guaranteed. The bids were pretty much the same.

And just listen to Newcastle Online instead. Got it.

He was like.

Mac Allister was unreal last season.

I never said it was brilliant. We've negotiated and got the payment terms we wanted which allowed us to try and improve other areas of the squad. If we paid £70m up front for Mbeumo, we can't afford anyone else without sales. That's all we'll be doing with Sesko.

I'm not confident on Sesko to be fair. But I do like the mix of young players and Premier League proven players this summer.

£65m is less than £70m. Add-ons are no guarantee. Payment was also on our terms. This will be what we're hashing out with Leipzig.

Brentford wanted £70m up front and we got him for £65m+£6m in performance based add-ons across 4 instalments, allowing us to keep a sizeable cash balance to go after Sesko/Baleba. If that's what you call folding, then I guess we folded.

They said this with Mbeumo.

Especially after what has been said about him on here.

Well Cunha and Mbeumo is around £36m. Say Baleba and Sesko would be around the same. The cash balance was around £75m so that checks out. Theoretically should be able to make those signings through instalments without any additional debt although it's obviously a risk if we didn't get into Europe again next season. I think we had 400-500 more staff than Liverpool as well by the way. Redundancies and cuts were absolutely required. His hyperbolic language didn't help things though.

Because it's all in instalments, plus there's £120m on the credit facility. I thought it was £100m but The Athletic reported more yesterday. It's a gamble if it goes wrong, but I suppose the idea is that these players will have good resale value.

I think when Ornstein and Romano are reporting that he wants us then it's almost certainly true. I know Romano can post excessively but that's his job and it makes him money; he still posts the truth 99.99% of the time. I'd say the hold up is all down to the add-ons structure. Probably like 90/10 he joins us at this point.

I was on my mobile last night and didn't want to give you a half-arsed reply so wanted to wait until I got on my laptop. You're 100% right about the attitude issue. Player power has been a huge issue at Man United for years since Fergie left and the attitude in the dressing room was rotten. All these new signings didn't suddenly turn into bad players when they came to us, but were dragged down to a professional level that just wasn't acceptable. Ten Hag did bits and pieces to fix it, but one sorry and you were straight back into the team. Rashford spent two days having a bender in Belfast, and was seen in a nightclub until 3am when he was due in Manchester for training the following morning. He ended up reporting himself ill and missing training. All he had to do was say sorry for that to Ten Hag and he was straight back in because he was our main source of goals and Ten Hag was desperate to win. How does someone on £300,000 a week get away with that? Amorim isn't like that, and there's a reason we adore him. If you cross him it seems like you'll get one chance, and if you mess up again you're out the door. That's what we've needed for years to fix the culture. You can feel the difference. I'm sure it was a huge shock to the system for the likes of Garnacho, but he openly questioned and basically criticised the managers decision to drop him for the EL final, and that was him finished as a Man United player. Our highest rated youngster, our diamond in the rough, yet he hasn't got the backing of any fan over the age of 12. Feels like players will now come in to a much more professional dressing room, and that's a foundation that has been needed for at least 8 years. ---------------------------------------------- Transfers, like you say, aren't the main issue. That doesn't mean some of the decisions haven't been shocking. Mount is a really good player and a good signing we were all happy with. £55m though in the last year of his contract? £250,000 a week? Ronaldo is Ronaldo, but Ole didn't want him and he upset the balance immediately. Fans, including myself, were blinded by nostalgia at the time but Ole had us purring and the Ronaldo signing was his downfall Sanchez is another one. Martial in incredible form on the left, and we signed Sanchez to keep him away from City. Sanchez was our highest paid player, and ended up displacing Martial despite not being anywhere near as good. We chased a player (De Jong) all summer when it was clear as he day he had no interest in joining us. Then we get smacked by Brentford and Brighton and panic buy Casemiro. Don't get me wrong, Case was class that first season, but the issue with his wages and contract was always coming. He gets £18m a year. Same with Antony. Available at £40-50m, and we baulked at that and fucked about all summer. Another panic buy after the Brentford and Brighton defeats. INEOS aren't making these mistakes. They're either buying young or buying Premier League proven players, and all of them on sensible wages. I think that combined with Amorim's culture cleanse will lead to a far better environment. All that remains is whether or not Amorim has the ability to get the team performing, and I think given what he achieved at Sporting it's clear he's got the expertise.

Maybe he hasn't. Nobody has explicitly said that yet.

Poor transfer management. Chasing De Jong all summer then panicking and buying Casemiro for the price we did. Ten Hag saying he wants Antony and he was available for half the price we paid. We fuck about all summer and end up paying £80m. Things like that don't help at all.

Just a keeper and midfielder now. Almost there.

A functioning transfer team is new for us too.