Nine

Having Murphy and Barnes back will be huge for us, we’ve had to rinse Gordon and Miggy and it’s shown at times.

Sun rises in the (north) east and sets in the west (Ham), clearly

Also we clearly feel there is a lot of value to be extracted from Ligue 1 - Bruno, Botman, Ekitike and probably more we don’t know about.

That’s good value for him imo

People take these links and media reports far too literally sometimes, it’s a dead window so naturally the bullshit level from the press will be increased. Not everything reported is true, not even half of it.. and anything that is will be exaggerated. Some on here ran with this assumption that management had gambled our financial structure on qualifying for Europe and therefore are on course to fail FFP so we had to sell to avoid implications, all because of Bayern trying their luck with Trippier. It’s madness

Pretty weak way of discrediting Longstaff tbh, he doesn’t deserve a Pardew comparison.. no one does

That’s very harsh on Longstaff, he had something like 40 apps last season and was a huge part of it.

I don’t think keeping him stunts any progress at all, he’s pretty much indispensable for the short/mid term and it would be especially silly to sell mid season. We’ve all got good reason to be pleased he’s staying.

The summer is going to have at least one long, drawn out media saga and it’ll probably be Bruno because of the clause.. At least selling him will put the FFP talk to bed for a season or two.

Great news, the fee would have never covered what we’d have lost if he left.

The media are loving using us for clicks in this dead window..

At the same time we shouldn’t totally judge a player from select data in a below average, inconsistent team. He was voted their player of the season for 22/23 also.

There’s this assumption that people seem to be running with that our hands are tied and we NEED to sell to balance FFP, yet we are signing 18 year olds from Man City for fees? Or the plan is to get rid of our depreciating assets (Trippier is hardly) mid season? Doesn’t make sense. I still think it’s nothing more than Bayern pushing for it and seeing what happens on the players side.

Pretty convinced of this to, it’ll be up to the player. I just can’t see how we’d agree to sell a crucial player mid season unless we felt obliged to, what we’d gain in FFP wiggle room doesn’t balance out the loss on the field/dressing room for me.

One of the worst semi final showings I can ever remember here from Boro

Anyone made the Haaland from Wish comment yet?

I’m guessing we’ve assured him we can give him a decent amount of minutes before City can.

It depends on what said player offers, for Trippier yes definitely.

Miggy has far more value to us than ASM ever did under Howe, but ASM brings more value to the Saudi league than Miggy would. We didn’t get robbed for 28m imo, at 35m it wouldn’t have been steep but I’m not sure if any of the serious sides from the top 5 leagues would have shown any interest in ASM at that point.. I think the fee was reasonable.

He has played right wing a hand full of times, but he is not a Miggy replacement I agree. More suited to a central position for sure.

He is more often than not crucial to the press and the system in general, if we are serious about selling we must have something for RW lined up. Will always be grateful for his time here regardless, he’s probably the most under appreciated player of the Howe era so far.

But then again you know they say that all men are created equal, but you look at Steve Bruce and you look at Eddie Howe and you can see that statement is not true.

Dovbyk 6 min hat trick.

Not sure anyone is suggesting that it would be the end of the world? There’s upsides to him staying or leaving, and it will ultimately come down to the player.

The issue with using the last 10 games is that its a small sample size and would be during the worst of our fitness issues. You cant make decisions based on that run as it doesn’t represent the side as a whole, and every aspect of our play has suffered since the injuries piled up not just our attacking outlets. Let’s be real, Trippier especially has had a pretty horrific run of form lately but it’s silly to let that skew what he has consistently shown he delivers for us.