Hhtoon

Happy to organise a plane to fly over us but no desire for anything actually productive for their club. How big is their loan to the 3rd party? Would the parachute payment/player sales (lol) cover it? Surely Ellis will either have to take a hit himself or just go in to admin now.

"The only ones who try and give me a bit stick at work, are the ones who don't even go to Newcastles games and haven't got a clue about football." Like it's that complicated. You're heading to the 3rd tier of English football cos you're shite whilst the mighty toon lord it up in the top half of the Prem.

Release the takeover tracker.

If Rafa was backed then i'd always back him over any player. If Rafa were to leave, then I'd happily give Mitro a chance over any other permanent forwards we currently have on our books.

Sometimes our players just seem to run at the opposition hoping they forget to tackle.

Cool as f**k

Team game so at least 9.09% culpable. Undeniable evidence he's finished and don't want him back here.

Apart from being limited, I don't recall hearing anything negative about him during his time here. However, on being told you were surplus to requirements then you gracefully accept time is up and leave. If you don't, then you are accepting of whatever treatment you receive.

Not sure why there'll be fume today. Most people already know nowt is happening. Are people really going to get to 4-5pm and think, "f***, we're not signing anyone are we?" People have been practically copy and pasting their own posts for weeks. I keep on thinking I'm accidently clicking in to the same topic each time but we could easily just have one thread at the mo content wise. I expect an increase today, hopefully with some new material.

This for me. Get a striker that Rafa wants and plays in his system, then the fate of one other team shouldn't be a huge concern.

Yup. Not a clue what Mitro has done, but he’s very clearly done something to irk Rafa. Good/bad is a bit of a basic way to look at it. I think it's much more likely that Rafa thinks he's unsuitable for us, but could be suitable to Brighton because of the way they play. Mitrovic simply isn't good enough for us to change the way we play to suit someone who's let us down time and time again with sending offs and suspensions - which is obviously the thing that's irked Rafa. I see this argument all the time - which would make sense if we didn’t persist on playing Joselu.If Mitro doesn’t fit our system, then Joselu certainly doesn’t either. I’m sure someone will point to Mitro’s disciplinary record now - so I’ll answer that anyway... when was he last sent off in a game? It’s a complete myth that we’ll go down to 10 men with him in the side because he’s not been sent off in recent times. If anything, Mitro would suit our system more with a bit of physicality in his game allowing players like Murphy the chance to get close to him. Whereas Joselu either loses it or taps it to nobody. Because Joselu doesn't get himself sent off and suspended and does as he's told. Whether you agree with Rafa on that is your choice, but I do. If he was good enough/suitable enough for us to put up with it, I'd agree, but he just isn't. The discipline argument is a completely valid argument, like. Not getting sent off during the odd 10 minute cameo isn't anything to hang your hat on and his disciplinary record remains a joke. Whatever argument for him playing is negated by that for me. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/aleksandar-mitrovic/ausfaelle/spieler/51152 He’s played over 1,400 minutes in 35 appearances since his last red card, so that argument is a load of nonsense. A load of nonsense if you conveniently ignore West Ham, which there's no reason to do whatsoever. The conversation is about getting sent off and going down to 10 men, did that happen? Howay man, just admit you forgot about it and it completely f***ed your argument If Mitro elbows you in the face but the ref doesn't see it, can it break your nose?

Looks like a Jermaine Jenas and Justin Bieber hybrid.

Someone lowballed me on a car which I deemed so derisory that I ignored them. They came back a couple of days later with a more acceptable starting point. Does that make me Mike?

250m is low. That is what the club was worth a decade ago. With the new PL money top tier clubs can become decent investment vehicles if managed correctly. IMO Newcastle has other advantages over run of the mill PL clubs as well. Think this might burst a few bubbles in here, but from a business perspective we are a run of the mill PL club. We are no different than Stoke, Watford, Bournemouth, and Swansea. Just like all of them and really anyone outside the top 6, we are closer to not being a PL club at all than being a top tier club. This is why there is such a massive gap in the valuations of the top 6 and everyone else. It's hard to fathom Liverpool or Spurs being relegated so those clubs are in a similar price bracket to some American sports teams based on the massive, global TV deals, merchandise, tickets, etc. For everyone else the threat of relegation, and with it the loss of the primary revenue stream, is more real than ever. The best way for Ashley to get the price he wants (and likely much more) would be to place a bet on Rafa's ability to move us into a much more secure position. Establish us as a "safe" club. But he's not going to do that so he'll continue to gamble, benefit from the global branding he's getting for free, and see if someone will eventually take the risk and pay him what he wants. Hmm. Bigger, better stadium in a better location, bigger fanbase (with the reputation, fair or otherwise, of being particularly fanatical), a history of competing in Europe (and the CL, in fact). How can you say we're the same - in terms of potential - as the other clubs listed? Get it right - which involves risk - and we'll be going much further than a Watford or a Swansea, and more quickly. There's plenty of reasons we're better from a romantic point of view, but that's irrelevant unless we find out Jeff Bezos or the Sultan of Arabia is secretly a Geordie at heart. The stadium and crowds are a blip on the total revenue. A history of competing in Europe is meaningless as it is history and provides exactly £0 in revenue. Even if a prospective owner was comfortable paying a bit of a premium based on our potential, our stadium, etc., it would be eye opening to calculate the cost of attempting to infiltrate the top 6 and become one of them. And if you're not one of them, you are one bad appointment and/or a few bad signings from risking your PL status and future revenue. You can't just value clubs on current financial terms, it's also about the brand and potential growth. Yeah it's worth £0 now but commercially, with equal investment, we would always generate far greater revenue than the majority of teams outside the top 6. Why are PCP not offering far less for any other lower mid table team?

Given the current circumstances of possible relegation? If we stay up does the cash price jump £50m? Ashley will see that as a worthwhile risk and I'd say there are currently 3/4 teams that are more likely to be relegated than us.

I dunno how to feel on price. If we'd stayed up with Rafa 2 seasons ago with some of the player assets we had, reckon 300m should have been the starting postion. But 250m now still feels low for our potential and if we were comfortable mid table reckon they'd have pushed it.... summer window really fcuked us.

"Carefully considered" does sound a bit sh1te. He's clearly over valued but seems PCP were way off the mark.

We have limited loans and Atsu is far from our weakest link. If funds are light (takeover pending), would rather save loans for more crucial positions. Ashley's view point IS reality as he owns the club.

Great result, bloody needed that! Know all a bit tense at the mo but only 1 go conceded last 3 games. Got a base to work with!

Wait, are we 19th?? :dontknow:

Our striker options aren't working so you do wonder whether Mitrovich would do any better, but he doesn't play as Rafa wants so it won't happen. A lesser manager would possibly be more pragmatic and change his approach to try him, but Rafa won't. I have sympathy as his approach/methods have won a lot of trophies and it's not his fault he wasn't given what he needed. Unfortunately that impasse doesn't help much unless he's backed.

I’ve rewatched the first half and again, we were abysmal, the worst I’ve ever seen us play at home. I find this very hard to believe. I can think of the Portsmouth defeat under SA and the Liverpool 0-6 straight away. There must be plenty more. Nah, those were bad performances but again our players did f*** all on the ball, not a thing. It was literally 35 minutes of Man City knocking it about, scoring, threatening and us just kicking it away when it come to us. Nothing football. You’re saying it was the worst tactical display you’ve seen at home, not the worst performance. No I didn’t, there was no tactics unless you call camping out on your own box and hoofing it when we had the ball tactics. It was total surrender. Shelvey shooting from kick off was like saying this is our only opportunity to shoot. How do you know there were no tactics and that the players just didn't execute them extremely poorly? i.e hoofing through nerves/lack of quality instead of passing to the (admittedly not many) outlets? I believe Rafa did set the team up very defensively (ok, probably too much) but I bet he was as disappointed as anyone at the lack of composure shown.

Really? I've looked at most places and this place is the exception which doesn't surprise me. Again people getting lambasted for questioning Rafas decisions. He is the one that has told us to play like that in the first half and quite frankly its embarrassing from him. Hes basically just forfeited the game he may as well have just said weve got no f***ing hope just go through the motions. Its 1 game for f***s sake its not a season defining game, we aren't relegated if we lose, so why go with this embarrassing formula and team that hes put it. Hes got it so f***ing wrong tonight its unreal Glad to see you're back...nowt worse than when your internet gets cut off after you've been called out. You thought it was going to be 0-4 btw, obviously you're annoyed it wasn't. So f***ing wrong it's unreal. He's a pleb that probably has never played sports in his life. Any idea what a 5-0 spanking would do to a struggling teams morale? Whether people like it or a not, losing 1-0 to the runaway leaders is acceptable and apart from the 1st 30 mins we were ok. Reckon the players will be reasonably buoyed by the 2nd half and relieved it wasn't total humiliation. Would much rather take that in to a winnable game against Brighton than broken spirits.

Yeah no sympathy for Guardiola. Spent what, about £120m on full backs in the summer? Hardly a level playing field.

Fully agree with this. I don't know why it's hard for people to understand, he had outlets ready to break but they didn't get the ball or squandered it. Everyone's been jizzing over city and they've been destroying everyone....we've just come off a bad run and the players were probably sh1tting it. Got to half time only 1-0, they settled down and made a reasonable go of it.