sushimonster85

This is one of those transfers I've largely stopped following. Every day its something different. He is either leaning towards Milan, or Newcastle officials are confident. I will check back in when he actually signs with someone! Also, didn't clock on just how stacked the Dutch are at CB.

Damn shame about Diaby, if true. But spending £60m on one player always seemed outlandish this Summer. We just aren't there yet, need several £30m (ish) type players, rather than 1/2 £60m+ players.

Anyone got the text of Luke's latest?

Alvaro Morata is one of those players that's been moved about so much on both permanents and loans that I'm not sure even he knows who he actually belongs to. He is basically the Office Space Milton of elite European football.

Wonder if this is the Fabian Ruiz links getting some proper legs.

I imagine this period before the window is actually open is the only time they felt like they could get away for some time off without missing too much.

Aye, it's fair play. If this had been a couple years ago when Milan were still stuck in a slump that felt like they would never get out of I'd maybe have questioned him more. But with them heading back in the right direction on the pitch, they're one of THE big draws in European football.

Think the issue is going to be whether there are any Championship clubs that would pay them what they're getting here. Need to hope they want to leave to play regular football, rather than just wait it out till their contract expires.

The Express article is likely based on BS. Romano said yesterday that the player bad already agreed to a 5 year contract, and be is rarely off.

Imagine this place by mid-July?!

Fun88 Twitter profile still has 'official NUFC shirt sponsor' as well as Miggy, Lascelles and Wilson in their header picture. I imagine even if they are going, their contract runs through June.

'Fact' being used in the Trumpian sense here I am assuming?

It is, aye. But on the flip side he pals around on Twitter with Sean Casey, who I believe is still at the airport waiting for Fonseca's plane to arrive.

This is very true. It's easy to get sucked into the Twitter bubble and end up believing this is a massive PR blunder from Castore, the likes of which they will never recover from... Then you remember that the average fan has no clue any of this is going on.

They'd argue that those deals were signed before these new rules came into affect. The real iffy area is determining what 'fair market value' really is.

Yep, this is the case. If it's an affiliated company the Premier League will refer it to an independent panel who will judge if its deemed to be fair market value, or inflated. I would also mention, this is legally far too vague and will likely crumble at the first hint of a legal challenge. Whether that comes from us, or some other team down the line.

Same. Think there was a reason those posts were removed.

Surely if it were anyone other than Fun88 it would've leaked by now?

Possibly. Though did think it was weird timing, surely you wait a couple days then give away a signed 22/23 shirt if you're still the sponsor?

Castore just posted a teaser they then quickly removed on Insta. Shirt pre-orders go live tomorrow at 10am. Imagine we find out sponsor craic either later today or tomorrow at 9am.

He was generally solid before this season. Either this past season was an outlier, or his body is starting to fail him.

Yep. As soon as the link appeared (with actual backing from more credible journos) last week he has been at the top of my wishlist. Think he would be a transformative signing.

Doubt it. It's not January, there aren't the same kind of time constraints we were under with Bruno. Also, I don't think Paqueta is going happen.

It's a bit of a weird one, because we only have one real example of a dip, but look at Harry Kane, and whatever was going on with him at the start of this season. Whether he was distracted by transfer speculation or just knackered who's to say. But his xG for this season and the season prior are pretty much identical (20.1 this season. 20.5 last season). Yet this season he scored 6 fewer goals. The first time he has under-performed his xG for as far back as fbref have 'expected' data. Kane is a player who, in the past several seasons, has vastly over performed his xG. If you were to look purely at the numbers this season is unexplainable. However anyone who watched Spurs in the first half of the season could tell you straight away that Harry Kane just wasn't with it. This is what I was referring to, a striker having a dip in confidence can be really hard to forecast, and they're more prone to it than pretty much any other position on the pitch.

True, but some players confidence is more fragile than others, and can vary wildly. Then you have mentality monsters like Ronaldo for whom confidence is never an issue. I do feel confidence/mentality is one of the (only) areas where xG is a little blind.