Ghandis Flip-Flop

They might be US companies, but I bet all their manufacturing is also in the far east

Also your last point doesn’t really make sense, Willock hasn’t been a regular starter for two years and Longstaff has barely played this season. Players aren't stupid and can obviously see that the trajectory of the club is upwards, which is going to necessitate some players moving on. If nothing else it stops people becoming complacent and things going stale. Something which I think we all had fears about in the early months of the season. A continual churn is good for keeping everyone on their toes and striving to perform. Do you really want a lot of players hanging around the place, who know they aren’t good enough to be starters for the team? Both Willock and Longstaff are at different stages of their careers than Dummett and Ritchie, they could have good careers elsewhere, they just aren’t the right fit for Newcastle as we currently play any longer.

Depends on what Mitchell can uncover in lower leagues here or abroad. We as a fanbase are going to have to come to terms with the fact that not every player we buy can be £30M+ yet, we don’t have the revenue to do it. As others have said elsewhere we need to be competing with Brighton and Bournemouth for these gems at the 10-15M bracket, with a splattering of ready made stars added in.

I remember thinking it was obvious that it wasn’t a sustainable run, we were far too reliant on Cisse burying every shot he took. Think the Swansea game we won, which was a slightly higher scoring version of the 1-0 wins we used to have vs Spurs when Krul had a blinder illustrated it best. One of the few times in my life when Newcastle has been a shining ray of light during a shit time though, which is something I guess.

Was down in the Falklands for that whole run of games and can remember just laughing at the absurdity of that goal when watching it on BFBS. By far the most satisfying result was the Liverpool game, not least because my boss was a 'Pool fan who made that whole detachment more difficult than it should’ve been.

3rd year of 6, as we bought him before they closed that loophole after Chelsea took the piss.

Post repeating above

Honestly think we need a really big summer, after effectively no first team investment for three windows. If we want to avoid a repeat of last season we really need to significantly raise the floor on the squad, as well as address a few obvious deficiencies in the first 11. There may be a fair few departures this summer Wilson, Targett, Longstaff & Trippier to name but a few. I really hope that Mitchell has an adequate plan to rectify that, as without this being addressed we run the risk of having another injury ravaged season, leading us to not being able to maintain another European qualification. The only way we can effectively begin to bridge the gap to the Crafty 6 is consecutive CL qualifications.

More likely to be Botman no? Especially given some of the opponents we are up against. Really interesting to see our summer business as I really think we need to improve on both Longstaff and Willock next summer ideally.

That’s on the proviso they start buying well and are ever ran properly again. I’m sure these exact arguments have been made for that past decade and if anything they've continued to regress. its all very well saying they have more money, but they still have to invest it effectively. Their recent actions don’t suggest that is something they’re about to suddenly achieve.

Makes castle walls cemented with whale spunk appear svelte

Im imagining they’re releasing players who they expect aren’t going to reach their level. Adding a buyback clause is just a simple, cost free clause in case they got it wrong. Dunno what’s difficult to grasp about that.

Eh? Surely a team getting near 100 points is more indicative of a farmers league. The fact that there’s almost nothing in it from second to about tenth, shows how competitive the league has been this season. Apart from the three promoted teams being so far off it, I think this year has shown the league to be in great health. Think back to the 90’s and early 2000’s what points totals did the champions have those years? This 100 points lark is a relatively recent phenomenon and indicative of the bulk of the league being miles off it

Might be a whoosh, but I think he might be alluding to the fact the Scousers claim to not be English

But he hasn’t got his players yet. I mean we'll just casually ignore how well it generally works out for managers in this league who are completely tactically and positionally inflexible.

Ok Chicken Little, the sky isn’t falling yet

We see it, you’re clearly scatalogical

I used to think this as well, but despite trialing it a while ago the moving a free kick forwards 20 yards isn’t always an advantage in football. Think a lot of it still stems from the FA and PGMOL (or whatever it was called at the time) seemingly being terrified of Ferguson and then the managers of the other "Legacy big 6” clubs knowing their value to "the product" and using that leverage accordingly.

Did he? I seem to recall it taking nearly two years for Sir Bobby to get decent signings in and then us flying. But before then it was a case of trying to fix a really unbalanced side with cheap pick ups from South America (Acuna, Cordone, Bassedas) or free's like Gallagher.

I don’t have a short memory, that was now two years ago and the team has evolved significantly, despite the relative lack of additions. He was really effective in Howe's first full season as we weren't yet facing low blocks on a weekly basis. He isn’t effective when he doesn’t have space to run into, which is a situation we are going to face more and more going forwards. BTW I’m not saying he's shit, I’m saying he is now 3rd choice left forward, not really technical enough for what we need as a central midfielder and his attributes aren’t well suited for the tactics we now routinely face.

Yeah but as I said earlier, that form was on the left side of our front three. Would you seriously put him in there ahead of Gordon or Barnes? Look back at the stats of the 22/23 season, we were massively reliant on Trippier and Miggy on the right for goals and assists, as Willock didn’t really create or score enough. Was that mitigated in some fashion by him having Burn behind him? Maybe, but Gordon massively outperformed him in similar circumstances last year.

Could you do the same for when we started winning (Late January) as I actually think it’d be even more impressive once you took those early games turning the oil tanker away from the rocks results out of the equation. I was chatting to a mate who's a Leeds fan after they'd secured promotion and he reminded me of chats we were having in the January of that year where we still weren’t winning, but thankfully hadn’t been cut adrift. I was still shitting myself that we were going down that year, as whilst performances had dramatically improved. The results hadn’t yet and things were looking dicey. But once we got the reinforcements that window, we genuinely haven’t looked back.

I think Willock's issue beyond confidence in his body and a run in the team, is that he isn’t really a central midfield player. He’s a bit of a hybrid 8/ wide forward. Now that the team has developed and we have better options on the left side of attack, where does he fit in? There was a period where him and Big Joe dovetailed well, but are you going to drop Gordon or Barnes to accommodate him? We need genuine midfield options and I am not sure if Willock suits us any longer.

Depends if there’s a clause or similar ala McAllister. Also do they demand ridiculous fee's from anyone other than Chelsea?

Seen some rumours about Van Hecke from Brighton this morning. Not sure of the validity of the sources but think he’d be a great signing if available at a realistic price. I honestly think he’s one of the most underrated centre halves in the league and still a good age too