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No, I agree. The chances of both parties being so stubborn he doesn't play first team football for three years seem pretty remote, but if we make sure he knows that we would be willing to accept that outcome as preferable to selling him for less than our price this summer then he has nothing to negotiate with.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. There is no way clubs are going to make it easy (or possible in fact) for a player to just walk out when they are paying tens of millions to buy them in the first place and then the same again to replace them. With three years left on his deal the only bargaining chip Isak and his team have is that we won't be willing to pay him £100k+ per week to train and play with the reserves, if needs be for the next three seasons. Take that away and there is nothing they can do to force the transfer to go through, that includes making an official transfer request which I assume will happen at some point this week. It's now just a case of who blinks first? Do we ultimately decide that we aren't willing to risk having the most expensive U21s player of all time for three years and sell? Or do Isak and his team accept that once September rolls by he'll need to play and play well otherwise Liverpool and any other potential landing spot may have started looking at the next shiny new thing?

That's what I thought when I saw that tweet. Their plan all along has been to kick up as much of a stink as possible, leaking stories left, right and centre, in an attempt to get us to accept an offer below our supposed £150m+ asking price. That hasn't worked so far so this is the next step - "Won't play for the club again" via paid media shills. The final roll of the dice will be the official transfer request, presumably by the end of this week. Hopefully this means Edwards' article was broadly accurate and we are absolutely willing to turn down offers even if that means he isn’t involved in the first team.

As it stands we don't have enough room in the CL squad for two more midfielders, unless Willock goes. I think we can only name 21 + Miley and that's without Lascelles, Krafth, Targett edit: That's 20 as it stands

That's what I think too. Howe would rather take his chances with a "lesser" player who is fully committed than an elite player who has already mentally checked out (assuming that is the case). The club/board want to appear "strong" and don't want to appear to cave to the sort of behaviour we've seen from Liverpool, Isak and his agent.

They could miss up to 7 league games, and FA Cup tie and the 7th Champions League game. There's no long term strategy in having Osula or Gordon up front for nearly 20% of the League campaign by choice

Makes absolutely no sense spending the best part of £100m on two strikers who will both miss multiple games over a busy Christmas/New Year period.

His price is £150m and we want two replacements. We don't think those players are out there, therefore he's not for sale. I'm not saying he's right or anything, but the position he's putting forward isn't a contradiction.

Suarez? There was the whole £40m+£1 carry-on, he wanted to leave to play in the CL, stayed at Liverpool and scored 30 PL goals the following season. Kane scored 17 the year after Man City were after him and 30 the year after. He went AWOL during preseason and didnt play the first few games. Plus he was "One of our own" so arguably an even harder one to come back from.

I think hes saying the board have blocked the transfer because of the conditions he mentions in his second tweet. If we want two strikers of sufficient quality before letting him go and we don't believe those players are currently available (Liverpool signed one of them...) then that doesn't contradict his article from last week.

We don't have the room in the squad (for CL at least) for two CMs and that's excluding Lascelles, Targett and Krafth as it is.

I'm just trying to work out what our CL squad is going to look like; Pope, Ramsdale, Ruddy (3) Trippier, Hall, Tino (3) Schar, Burn, Botman, Thiaw (4) Bruno, Tonali, Joelinton, Willock (4) Elanga, Barnes, Gordon, Murphy (4) Isak (or other), Wissa (2) Assuming Miley doesn't have to be registered? That leaves one more spot for a midfielder unless there's someone I've missed.

A lazy but smart journalist would be using the NUFC.com rumours page from May to August 2023 to generate "links"

Every single shred of evidence tells us that Liverpool have no intention whatsoever of getting close to £150m. The low-ball bid, the constant non-updates on social media, waiting for us to "invite/encourage them" back to the table. All with the intention of forcing us into a position where we have to accept a lower price. That might change with the Nunez sale, we'll find out soon enough.

I wonder how far their logic would stretch if, for example, Real Madrid got involved? Surely Liverpool would do the honourable thing, step aside and allow Isak to move to a bigger, more successful club?

Changed manager since then, new manager wanted to keep him

Pre-window I wanted a replacement for Wilson (Wissa ideal), a starting RW (Elanga probably not who I would have gone for but I think he'll do well) and starting CB (don't know whether Thiaw will be that just yet). It was obvious the club were after a keeper who is more comfortable with the ball so hopefully Ramsdale is that. I wanted a 3rd/4th choice CM before Longstaff went so I think we need at least one now. Would love someone like Gallagher at the £40m range, not a backup as such but someone who we can have in the midfield without a substantial drop in quality. Obviously the Isak situation complicates things, going into the last part of the window needing to seal Wissa and bring in a midfielder is one thing but if we also need to bring in an elite level (or at least elite potential) striker, that's a tough ask.

Apologies if this has been covered but how are we pronouncing this 34-year-old cunt's name? Thee-aw or Tee-aw?

He's been a target for a while so Nickson obviously rates him, Howe will have given it the green-light too. That's good enough for me and £30-35m is the sort of fee I assumed we'd be looking at for a defender. Plus we've still got Schar, Burn, Botman and (if it comes to it) Lascelles so he doesn't need to go straight in if he needs work.

Bringing Wissa in also means whoever we bring in as the Isak "replacement" doesn't have to hit the ground running because we've got a guy we know we can rely on to be productive in the Premier League. In that situation you can bring someone like Aghehowa in and give him time to develop - doing what we have done successfully in the past and make a move for a player who still has question marks and needs work. Like others have said, if we wait another year and he scores 20 goals this season, he'll be out of reach.

This is a guy who doesn't even like loan deals because he only wants players who are fully engaged - he wants Isak out 100% in my opinion and the only reason he's not being more forceful about that publicly is because he doesn't want to weaken our hand.

Wissa and Jackson makes no sense with ACN around the corner. We're going to spend the best part of £100m on two strikers who will quite possibly both be unavailable during the busiest time of the season?

Honestly, of all the names we've been linked with I think I want Wissa the most. His ceiling isn't as high as Sesko, Agehowa etc. but you could quite happily stick him up front in any PL or Champions League game and trust him to do a good job, while you could also see him happy in the 22/23 Wilson role if one of our other targets comes in and hits the ground running.

With the benefit of hindsight they're looking very much like "Oh yeah, I've got a girlfriend but she goes to a different school so you won't have heard of her..."

Also, if we'd done the other business we'd needed (CB, CM, Wissa) I'd be much more...I won't say happy...comfortable maybe...with the last remaining question mark being Isak or someone else? As it is the whole squad is weaker and we may end up replacing arguably our best player with our 7th or 8th choice alternative.