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That's my theory. If he was keen to come in January, he'll definitely be keen to come now.

100% My preference would probably be a DM. Against the better sides Bruno can sit deeper with the new DM and help cover the back four, in other games he can push forward and pick the ball up a bit further up the field.

That would be a disappointing use of £30m

I'm not familiar with Inacio but I'd take the other five over Carlos. Having said that, I'd have been delighted with Coutinho, Kamara & Carlos so you have to give credit to Villa, they've done some very good business so far.

His Canada manager is a Geordie and/or NUFC fan I think

Having a bit of a read up on Paqueta - it looks as if he is comfortable as the central AM as well as on the right side of a three-man midfield, as he naturally drifts into space on the right allowing him to cut in on his favoured left foot. He actually has a similar goals/assists record whether he has played for Lyon as an AM (7g 5a in 25 games) or a CM (7g 3a in 28 games) so I wonder whether the plan would be to have him on the right of a midfield three and create space for Trippier on the overlap? I have to admit, I hadn't really considered him an option because I thought it was just a case of "He's Bruno's mate" but if this one does have legs...

You don't know that

It could be, although he has more recently said the "spend to be £60m at the low end and £100m at the top end" plus player sales. It's not totally inconceivable that we could spend £100-120m on three or four very good players, plus two more either on loan or as free transfers. None of this is contradictory with the general consensus of our budget and the number of players we are reportedly after (four to six).

Absolutely no chance whatsoever we are signing Bowen

I think its partly that and partly the fact that his role isn't really going to be that much involved in actual individual transfers. Assuming he has the same sort of role he had at Brighton. From the Athletic article a few months back they have him down as more of a "big picture" hire, rather than a "there's a really good left back in the Belgian third division we should look at" Put it this way - I don't think our transfer activity this summer will be vastly different whether Ashworth starts in June or not. From the article; Broadly speaking, he had an overseeing role covering the men’s first team, the women’s team, the academy, loans, medical and sports science departments. Speaking to The Athletic in February 2020, Ashworth said: “I don’t like hierarchical structures, so I always draw it that the technical director sits in the middle of the wheel and on the outside of the wheel is the head of each department. The job of the technical director is to just keep that wheel spinning." Signing players was not Ashworth’s primary task and there is little concern on the south coast that Newcastle’s approach will have a detrimental effect on Brighton’s transfer plans or way of operating.

That's a lot of new names to me. YouTube servers about to take a pounding...

Which strikers in Ligue 1 have we been linked with aside from Ekitike?

Are you sure? Just looking at the bottom of the shirts that are sort of hanging off the metal bar they look completely different. There is more of the right sleeve visible on the home kit than the blue/yellow kit. Few other differences that suggest it isn't just a stock template someone has essentially coloured in (if that's what you're suggesting)

Is the green/white confirmed as the away kit? Some reports had it as being the third strip.

I guess it's just different terms - the "sale" from the sellers point of view is worth £2.5bn but the "sale" will cost the buyers £4.25bn.

On the assumption we'll sign a CM this summer we'll have six CMs - Bruno, new CM & Joelinton/Willock to start, Longstaff and Shelvey in reserve. As long as three of the first four can play the majority of minutes, that's not bad depth. edit - I also take confidence in the fact that Rafa liked him enough to play him regularly and Howe obviously sees enough there to sort out this new deal. I find it hard to read too much into the Bruce years where his development was clearly stunted.

Even worse - it's not even called "Financial Fair Play" any more. At least not in the PL. It's "Profit and Sustainability". Now, what's sustainable about Burnley being bought using money owed to the creditors...from Burnley FC? And a huge chunk of that payable when they get relegated and are at their most vulnerable position financially? What's profitable about Spurs' £700m debt on <£400m revenue? Or Manchester United making a £90m loss and owing over half a billion pounds to its own creditors? It's a flawed system because there's no way that controls spending that doesn't create a closed shop consisting of the teams who got in there before the rules changed (Chelsea and Man City most recently) and there's no way to stop clubs spending beyond their means that doesn't limit/control what the clubs can and can't spend. The problem is, the current rules clearly don't work because clubs are still laden with debt and still incredibly vulnerable to any drop in income eg. via relegation.

Yeah they can, that in itself isn't against the rules as long as its covered by income (which it will be due to them being in the CL next season) FFP is just a stripped down version of profit & loss and capital investment doesn't count as income so they can't just pump money in and say "Look, we made an extra £150m!"

"Despite his talent and ability, however, he has come under criticism in the media over his behaviour off the pitch, and has also been accused in the media of lacking professionalism, as well as having a poor attitude and a difficult character, which has led him to have conflicts with several of his managers" Adrien Rabiot (Wikipedia)

He doesn't say "three for £30m" he says around the £30m range. I'm not saying he's right, or that it's what will happen, but three players around the £30m bracket would be consistent with many of the names we have been linked with and it isn't unrealistic that we have a list of strikers, CMs and defenders who we believe would be available for around the £30m range.

I reckon we'll get a striker, one other and someone on a free early(ish) then we'll wait and see how things pan out later on in the window. Some players may become available that aren't currently and I think we might look to use the loan market again too. Plus we've got a lot of deadwood to shift.

How it worked with the Cricket and Rugby World Cups was that you applied for how many tickets you wanted (up to a certain limit, can't remember what it was) and which price bands you were willing to accept.

Right, but there are a few issues here. How far back do you go? Last season? Five seasons ago? Ten? A lot of people haven't had a ST for reasons other than "never bothered" and that's a lazy generalisation to attempt to back up your point. You're guessing that they could offer them all back and still have some left for general sale. What if there isn't any left over for general sale? I'm saying this as a prior ST holder, no bias.

45m Euro isn't far off what we were supposedly offering (its about £38m)

Nothing stopping us doing exactly that, and it can't be blocked by these "fair market value" rules because other clubs already do it. Obviously the value of the deals will be scrutinised but there's no doubt our sponsorship revenue will increase a fair amount. That's the easiest route to being able to unlock more spending power in the transfer market.