WilliamPS

Difference is Burn started pretty much every game last season, he contributed on the pitch and isn’t a cheerleader. even with a new LB an injury or suspension to Botman and Burn is in. Dummett, Ritchie and Gillespie will likely never start a game for the club, excepting maybe cup first rounds - at the same time until there’s funds to replace there’s no point booting out players who are good characters and are happy to sit on the bench

Bring Woody home! The logic of a 3rd proper striker is sound, but I think even for a £5m fee the club will want a youngster who will improve than an average player Armstrong would be crazy to come to a club where he might not make the bench never mind get a regular start at 26 Also my preference would be for someone who has a bit of height and can hold the ball up a bit. I am sure the club are looking at strikers in the academy and who could be bought for the development squad and step up to the first team in an emergency or for the bench in early round cup games

If his agent is half decent Rice will have known he was on City’s radar and would have waited. Arsenal didn’t get anything wrong, when a bigger club come calling you typically miss out. Nufc had it last year with Ekitike - he would have joined if he didn’t know PSG were considering him. on Mount and Maddison I’m pretty amazed what clubs with hold out for when players have a year left. Will see what happens with Kane too.

How is it cheating? It doesn’t damage the integrity of the sport or what happens on the pitch. If the rules were around a total cap on spending that made the competition fair I’d agree, but as the rules are to stop clubs going bust (or so they claim) getting cheap signings is fair enough.

His wages will be insane, he plays for Real Madrid so Newcastle is undeniably a step down and has been bought by them with the plan of him being there for a decade with Bellingham and Valverde as replacements for Casemiro/Modric/Kroos It makes no sense for the player or for either club

I can’t see Lewis getting a start for any top Championship club, he hasn’t played for two years and wasn’t pulling up any trees when he did. I just remember that Brighton home game in 20/21… Ritchie I can’t see managing a 40+ game season and where would he play? His pace has gone. In the PL he is a 20minute cameo player now but what championship team has one of those?

Would Martial want to go? He’s had his injury problems but he’s in the picture at Man Utd and could go to other European clubs I really can’t see why a player would go to Spurs right now. Man Utd pay more than anyone so he can’t be tempted with £££ and be giving up on playing in the CL

I do think this week will see a change in the club - moving from planning to acting By now they’ll have sounded out the players and clubs via agents and know which ones are runners and a rough price on fees and wages. A few of the deals already done we’re free transfers or release clauses - which are always going to happen faster as there are fewer bits to agree

Bad miss from Foden, but City starting to play like City (Nice play but he’s got to finish that in a CL final)

Came in sort of wanting City to win but flipping Inter working hard

I know the club want a RCB, I just think the hierarchy will rightly view it as one that can wait, too many other priorities

Lascelles leaving would mean another CB would have to be bought, and probably for a lot more than the fee Lascelles would command, so it would have a negative impact on the other moves i think it’s one for next year

the club will look to line up signings in each of the priority positions within a set budget, so we might hear nothing then 3 announcements at once. different players will get linked as the club test the valuations and salary demands to see if the jigsaw pieces fit. Names like maddison will come and go as the other positions get narrowed down, then when it’s settled I expect the deals to be done en masse

It’s clear none of the journos know which players the club want, but everyone knows what positions

Wonder how Ronaldo feels, stuck in the desert and hiker Messi is in Miami. Ronaldo has all the money he needs, and Messi might get a load of extra US endorsements to close the financial gap anyway

Edwards list might make sense if it was just Howe, who I think leans more toward PL experience - but not really believable given there will be a transfer committee. Also saying they want value but will only shop in UK, the most expensive market?

A change of ownership likely triggers all the debt being due, and would make more sense for the Qataris to pay it off than to borrow again and pay interest when they have cash But if the takeover and debt clearing lets them spray cash everywhere is yet another pisstake of the ‘fair’ in FFP

Yeah - can’t see why else he’d post that A shame Also don’t think it helps the club in the transfer market as he will need replacing

But then you have to replace ASM as well, probably at the same cost, so it doesn’t really create any extra funds If there are other reasons fair enough, but I don’t see the club being willing sellers of anyone who would actually attract a fee as they would just need replacing

The joy of selling to Real Madrid is they love overpaying I think they like overpaying so the President can go to the fans with how much they’ve spent

It will be the last chance given Kanes only got a year left on his contract, and even he won’t be daft enough to sign a new one

Yes, would have liked him. with Poch there’s a risk they may actually know what they are doing this time round

The treble bit is quite a domestic thing, and particularly big for Man Utd fans For City’s owners, Pep and the players they won’t give a stuff about 99 and Man Utd. The CL for them is the big one, dwarfing everything else as the whole project was about European dominance and they have never won a CL. The owners want that medal, the players do, and Pep wants to show he can win without Messi, Xavi, Iniesta et al Clearly City want to win the cup, like they’d want to win every cup, but I think the treble is more of a deal for the City (local) fan base and for Man Utd

Suspect LB is not the priority, midfield is, so the approach will be to get the midfielder deal(s) done and then have a look at what budget is left before making any LB moves Might be wrong, but at LB there’s no rush

Links that are based on scouts watching games are so tenuous- especially now the club has started to build a big scouting network. Newcastle scouts will probably be watching tens of games a week and hundreds of players. You could link whole leagues of players based on scouts watching their games Not like when it was just Graham Carr shopping in France…