Abacus

Favourite player, bar none. You'd go to war with this one.

It did seem a complete fluke for him to work there in an emergency. Clark's red > Joelinton now starting for Brazil ffs You honestly couldn't script it.

It's a good question, but I couldn't give an answer about a general consensus myself about Newcastle fans if I was asked that question the other way around. (There's a danger you end up giving a majority view from what you hear and then having to defend it as if you're some sort of spokesman.) But yes, interesting to see if the general vibe he gets is similar to social media or not, without having to answer for it - I get the genuine sense that he just wants to talk about his team on here.

Well, I think we can all agree that if Barella comes to Newcastle and fails, that proves that Italians in general can't play in midfield. So let's just buy him and settle this debate once and for all. It's the only way to sort it, and that's science.

Wild, isn't it?

I'd fear for ChatGPT's mental welfare.

This was always the issue we'd had with Ashley. The so-called Arsenal of the north plan, of buying young, developing well and making the odd sale is great on the face of it. But some gambles don't work, and you're stuck with those ones. Plus, it relies on you being consistently ahead of the market both in recruitment and development, and other clubs will spot what you're doing and catch up. Then, of course, it relies on you reinvesting any big sales smartly to improve the squad long term. So, it's alright if don't employ comical bunglers to negotiate transfers and 'develop' players, and then pocket any money that comes in from the few successes you do have. It doesn't sound like your current owners are on the same ego trip or have the intent to use you as a golf-sale style billboard, though, so you might have a better chance. PS, you can have Bellingham AND Hendrick if you like...

As they are PIF owned, any transaction between us and any of these Saudi clubs would likely be classed as a related party transaction. So, that loan deal would already need to be assessed at fair market value and wouldn't work as a dodge. Lots of reasons why - the most basic one being that if it was a genuine third party transaction, what would be in it for the loaning club to pay someone's wages with no benefit to them? Still, always interesting how FFP has been subverted from stopping clubs spending recklessly and possibly going bust, to stopping clubs spending money they actually have and want to spend, in case it threatens certain clubs who seemingly make the rules. Thing with that is, Man City are already in the henhouse now and seemingly unstoppable, as were Chelsea before. Ban them both and strip their titles, or let others compete on the same basis. Watching Man City parade to the title doesn't make for a great competition either, which is the PL's main global selling point. I'm actually all for us following FFP using realistic sponsorships etc, because at some point, a reckoning is coming.

I don't really know if that £10 a head figure is accurate, or where it really comes from. I think it was from one of those Kieran Maguire articles, based on the results of your last PL season. Don't have time to look at it in detail right now, but I think it was just dividing total match-day revenue by the number of fans claimed to be in attendance. I.e. it would include season ticket revenue and season ticket holders attendances, as well as any free tickets given out in those attendance figures (which would obviously lower the average). It's not just based on those who pay on the day or buy tickets game by game. NB, on free tickets given out to schools etc, I'm not so sniffy - I think it's a good initiative even if it inflates numbers. It's not like that season when Ashley gave away 10,000 half season tickets to deliberately pad the numbers, since he was a disgusting embarrassment. Or is your point that a season ticket comes out at less than £45 a game? I'm not sure that matters. They point really is that for all the claimed attendances, it doesn't result in as much revenue as it does for other clubs. Yes, maybe if you'd been more successful, more paying fans would have turned up, that's true. I'm not sure how many walked away as a protest against Short. But I suppose it's a bit of a vicious circle - if they don't turn up, you don't have the money to compete.

I suppose the other thing is that Sela could always just agree to end it early and renegotiate if we start looking like a more regular top team, and our value to them goes up. E.g. agree to extend the deal for x number of years at the cost of increasing the annual sponsorship cost, something like that.

£50m for Maddison seems a lot given the situation Leicester are in, and that he'll be wanting away. Saying that, I wonder if that's the right way to look at it. I think the real question is, what would he be worth to us and therefore what should we be prepared to pay? If we thought Gordon was worth £45m (and the jury is out on that one for sure), why do we think £30m is what Maddison would be worth to us? Plus, more childishly, I'd just like to stop Spurs getting anyone they actually want and send them further into a tailspin.

Appreciate the response, thanks. From the outside, it also didn't seem like his heart was in it to me either. I just didn't know if he'd been sold a lie by an increasingly detached owner, or if he was still smarting from his previous two jobs and went for a club to build up like at Everton and then just using all the same players, a bit like being on the rebound. Anyway, back to usual (non personal) hostilities soon.

From what I understand (this is just reading from RTG, by the way, so could be nonsense and interested to get your take), there were two main failings with Moyes at Sunderland. The first was that he was moaning about relegation from the first few games of the season, and so set a negative mindset for the whole season from the off. The second was his (generally) terrible signings, where he brought in lots of players who were past it or had bad attitudes, often on contracts that saddled the club with players they couldn't shift and on high wages. So, when you then got relegated, they were an albatross around your necks financially for several seasons after, hence plummeting further. Also, awful football. But then, it hadn't been great for a few years, and it was probably the regular points from us in the derbies that kept you up in those last few seasons. So, it was coming at some point; Fat Sam leaving for England seemed to throw your plans into disarray that season. Though BFS seemed keen to get out before that anyway and Moyes on paper seemed like a good choice. Maybe he saw the same things behind the scenes the fat egomaniac had and then also wanted out fast too. The terrible transfers seems a good argument - I think N'dong was on his watch? And there were a few others that went awol. Then again, I think most of the players he bought were loans and, in transfer fees anyway, he probably spent about £35-40m. Which isn't a huge amount for a team that had been battling relegation anyway. Is that fair, or am I missing something? Because from the outside it seems he is pretty well hated in Sunderland.

There's many a mickle makes a muckle.

One interesting titbit from the Times today was apparently Stavely represented PIF and played "a pivotal role" in their negotiations with the PGA to broker this deal. Whatever your views on it (and I for one couldn't care less about golf), if true she's definitely well in with PIF and a really effective dealmaker.

Not convinced that selling St Max makes much sense to me right now. I still think he's needed for when Plan A doesn't work for at least another year - he can certainly unsettle defences and push them back 10 yards. But I'll immediately contradict myself now by saying that he's no longer indispensable like he used to be. The new indispensable players are Bruno and Joelinton - almost certainly Isak in time. I can't see many of the CL contenders in the premier league going in for ASM, and that's where we're aspiring to be. So I guess that being the case IF, and only if, the right offer comes in this summer then you have to sell and reinvest better just like you would any other player in the squad. Edit - currently working on my next statement of the bleeding obvious as we speak.

Not to swim against the tide or anything, but re Casemiro. I think that's the definition of an orange card. Should have been a yellow at least, but VAR can't intervene with yellows. And unless it was a clear straight red then, again, I don't think VAR can do much even if it's clear the ref couldn't have seen it properly. Hang on, have I just become Peter Walton? Fuck my life. In that case, personally, I'd have given him two yellows and sent him off anyway - one for the foul, and the other for the playacting straight after. Phew.

I don't think anyone said desperate. Just that London journos were pushing the story, and then I mentioned they were keen to use the money to bring in Rice as I'd read that in the paper this morning. Plus, he's lost his place to Zinchenko last season, so seems an obvious one for them to move on.

On that injury record - that's 3 seasons as Celtic where he missed 42 games, and then 3 at Arsenal where he missed 48. And then barely played last season anyway. You'd guess the reason Burn continued as LB for us even when he was looking wobbly and Target was fit, was that most managers, Howe included, want a settled back line. So, it might be a bit of a risk is all.

I think it was mainly injury, but then Zinchenko came in and became the preferred choice. Which might just be a matter of playing style as STM says.

Maybe, and I'm quite happy to be wrong there, but he's certainly disposable to them - only started 6 games last season. It's the fitness issues that would worry me mainly. Aren't we past buying players who are a fitness risk and taking a gamble on them?

Yup. Gary Jacob in the Times (their London correspondent) saying we're in 'pole position' for Tierney, with Arsenal wanting 'more than' £30m, to help them fund a bid for Rice. Not fussed either way on Tierney, but with this and the McTominay stuff, I really don't think we should be taking unwanted squad players from premier league rivals, especially not if there's a Newcastle tax on them.

Looks like Forest are trying to sell Shelvey, with Cooper being unhappy with his attitude around the training ground. You could tell that wasn't going to work given his miserable face when he signed there. So happy we didn't trigger that contract extension now - I'm guessing it'll be a championship team he goes to.

Allardyce is hoping to stay in the Leeds job. But is warning that he'd need to spend money on proven experience to do so. Here's an inspiring quote about is brilliant managerial powers; "Recruitment is the number one factor for any manager. You can't improve a player by 10%, it's going to be 2 to 3%." After what we've been seeing here under a decent coach? What a chancer.

Good for him, and for us as well. Hopefully shows ambitious players that you don't need to be playing for Man Utd or Barcelona to get international recognition.