Emotic

Hope to get a defender and a midfielder in by Leeds. Else we are bound to lose.

Lascelles still captain too, so Howe won't be binning him overnight.

Apologies, I thought you meant "manager" as in the actual manager of the team. The Board of a foreign owned club being populated by people from the buying country is no great surprise - the BOD typically deals with the business entity side of things. It's good that the managers have been Spanish throughout, bar the disaster with GNev. By the way, Singapore isn't in Indonesia - close, but totally different countries - but your point is taken.

Should Joelinton replace Shelvey in the deep playmaker role and get Almiron on to play further forward in the midfield?

"A few Indonesian guys as managers"? I must have missed that part. Since GNev (installed because he was a buddy of Lim's), every single Valencia manager has been Spanish, man. Also, why would Lim (a person from Singapore), install Indonesians to run the show?

Ben Arfa-esque. I'd take him on the right.

Presumably our sociocultural offer was found wanting.

Second time in two weeks we've been linked with Jordan Veretout, and I think he'd be good for this campaign - a basic bitch, no-frills, hard-driving box 2 box midfielder who likes to get forward and has a great shot on him. He's like a Deschamp-lite water carrier (in the best way). Trouble is whether he would be up for another relegation fight. The last time at Villa, he played 30 games in their relegation season before he was shipped out. @brummie can tell us more.

Dignified.

The comments though "We want Mbappe" - "We have Mbappe at home".

It's such a sad trope by now, man. Sunderland isn't defined anymore by what they are, they are defined by what they are not Newcastle. Why bother to support your football team, then?

Pretty sure we're going to end up with at least one centre back. There was quite a bit of focus on a LB too. I wouldn't be surprised to see two or more incoming before the close of the window.

Replace Almiron with Cantwell and we look a little better, whilst weakening yet another relegation rival.

I think that an added complication now is that Howe wants players who can immediately fit into "his system" and appears much more comfortable with tried-and-tested premiership players/ex-players too. Could be a function of the desperate state we are in now, and the need for players who can hit the ground running - however it's probably no coincidence that we've been linked with players from four continents, but our signings so far have been Kieran Trippier and (likely, soon) Chris Wood. So the confounding factors include greedy agents; clubs who want to take advantage of our desperation; diminished desire of players themselves; and a manager/coach who plays a certain way and might not want said player. It's tough. I certainly hope that when we are safe in the PL come the summer, that Howe will be more expansive in his outlook, and think about more fluidity in his tactics and take the chance on some exciting players from overseas who would fit different, adaptable setups. That would be what a top, top coach would do.

At this rate, let's just have PIF buy Bournemouth and do a straight swop of both our first teams. It has the Howe connection, top of the Champo, and honestly might be cheaper than the sum total of players that we're being quoted by clubs so far.

Oh look, more "West Ham is interested in Newcastle targets"

Ah change it to Bob Bradley then.

We should get the Maple Leaf fellas to buy us instead, just for the insanity of having Belloti and Insigne, managed by John Carver

Yeah, it was totally hypothetical from me - "if we took Wood from them at XX mil, and they spent that on one of the myriad of good strikers that we ourselves have been linked with...", that sort of deal.

Imagine if we bought Wood from Burnley at 17mil, and they put that towards Ben Brereton-Diaz as a replacement. I wonder who would be the happier set of fans.

A 19-year-old in his first run of scoring form, from a foreign league, is just asking for trouble IMHO. If he doesn't burst out of the blocks, the crowd will get restless and his confidence will be gone, never to return.

This is the guy hinting of De Jong earlier, no?

Yep. Maybe that’s why we’re looking at Chris Wood ?

And yet I’d still have him over 2022 Dubravka.

Facundo Ferreyra lol.