Keegans Export

I've thought for a little while that perhaps Eddie is much more willing to let Isak leave than Yasir is. I don't know why exactly. Some of his comments are very 'hands off', almost distancing himself from the whole thing. For someone who is clearly a massive control freak (not a bad thing) saying things like "someone back in the UK is dealing with it" and using the time difference as a reason seems odd. It wouldn't surprise me if his feeling was that if Isak doesn't want to be here (and seems like he doesn't), fuck him off and I'll work with whoever we replace him with.

It's a nightmare situation for any club/manager but if anyone can handle it, it's Eddie Howe.

Most online sources suggest around €100k/£90k per week although I assume there's a hefty margin of error on these websites.

We managed to sign the only not world class player in the France '98 squad...

Slightly different situation here potentially - we could just be forcing someone's hand. We know Man Utd are interested, now we are putting money on the table so are they going to match it? If they don't, does he just wait until they have the funds? What if he waits, then Man Utd target Watkins?

Oh, Sesko's fucking magic, He wears a magic hat, He could have played for Man U, But they would have put themselves in a weak position to sell the likes of Garnacho and the like so they said "No, fuck that"

The optimistic side of me says that the best way to motivate Isak to perform for us this season is to bring in a second potentially elite striker and say "prove it" The pessimistic side...that can wait for now...

I'm fairly sure they have the PSR room to pay £150m or more for Isak. Even if they don't currently, they can easily shift squad players/academy products any time between now and the end of the current period to make up any shortfall. The question is, and always has been, do they really want to? This very public unsettling is quite clearly Liverpool doing everything they possibly can to get the price down to a level they are comfortable with. Whether it works or not, who knows.

You've got to assume that if we've been that assertive with the response, we must have some confidence that he can be reintegrated into the squad?

There was that story where he, unbeknownst to Arsenal, was listening in on the negotiations and heard them say something along the lines of "£20m is too much for a backup midfielder". No idea if that was true.

With hindsight, but at the time Isak was a bigger gamble. There's a reason no other big sides challenged us for that deal.

Muniz as the Wissa alternative I can see but not at £40m. Doesn't he only have a year on his contract? The thought of losing Isak and ending up with Wissa, Muniz and Osula

100% I always assumed he'd be gone this summer if we missed out on CL or next summer regardless, so obviously I was wrong on the details but I've always assumed that post-takeover Newcastle United 2.0 would involve selling one or two "purples" and using that money to add five or six players to the squad - in Isak's case that would be Sesko & Wissa for example. Post-takeover Newcastle United 1.0 is/was a quality starting XI but insufficient depth to maintain a European campaign, hopefully we're now moving on to the next stage.

Jeez, get a room you two...

No strong feelings either way on this one. I wasn't fussed about Pope when he signed and that turned out to be a good piece of business. At the very least the £4m loan fee is a £20-25m saving on Trafford which will hopefully allow us to sign one of our top targets sooner rather than later.

Exactly. Take the whole "sell the women's team" for example. That isn't really an option currently, at least not a particularly lucrative one. But with a bit of foresight we could have pumped money into ours - no PSR restrictions in women's football remember - to increase it's value to then sell to ourselves. We don't even need to do all of it at once, just keep pumping money into it, increasing the value and selling 10% or so every time we need a boost.

"Good afternoon Red Bull, we have finished admiring, monitoring, considering and preparing and we would like to officially offer £50m for Sesko please" "You do realise we sold him to Manchester United don't you? And that it's now November?"

I have no idea who is leading our transfer strategy now so I'm not going to call any individual out but Jesus Christ we needn't bother employing any actual scouts the way we're going.

I think a lot depends on the attitude of the squad. If the general feeling is that they understand why he/his team have done what they've done, that's professional football etc. and as long as he's going to knuckle down once the window shuts then I think we'll be doing the right thing not budging on our "not for sale" stance. But if the consensus is that he's acted like a wanker who has let his teammates down then maybe it's better for the club as a whole to let him go. In truth, Liverpool aren't a rival. With the rules as they are we aren't competing for titles any time soon so our battle is with Villa, Arsenal, Man Utd not Liverpool and Man City. An extra £90-100m or whatever we have after Sociedad get their cut could leave us with a stronger squad overall - GK, CB, CM, Wissa, Sesko. The problem, and I wasn't expecting this going into the summer, is that I've completely lost faith in both our transfer strategy and our ability to get deals done.

100% He also seemed to wait until Liverpool had already spent £100m+ on Wirtz then another £80m on Ekitike before starting to push for it. If they now need to stick to a budget that's not our problem. Sorry Alex, clearly you weren't a priority for them and now they can't/won't pay our asking price because they busted their load on other players weeks ago.

Isak flown to KSA to meet with Yasir, Yasir in the UK to meet Isak. Chaos. This is Andy Howe's fault imo.

Depends how true that promise of letting him go for £26m is. If they've told him that then reneged on it then I can see where he's coming from. If it's not true then yeah he's being a bit of a dick about it.

I don't understand why we can't go fully public - we value him at £180m or whatever, we won't sell him after 1st August for any amount because we won't have time to source a replacement and if that's a problem for Liverpool then they should have prioritised Isak and not spent £200m on two different players before making their move. Not our problem they now need to sell to buy.

Well in that case we should have no bother identifying players that will improve us because the depth is almost non-existent as it stands 🤷🏻‍♂️

The line about having to improve us is starting to grate a little bit I have to say. Improving on the likes of Tonali, Bruno etc. is difficult, absolutely. Borderline impossible with our budgets. However improving the squad? Surely we should at the very least be aiming for players who can offer more from the bench or as rotation options than Lascelles, Willock, Osula? If we can't improve our ideal starting XI let's at least look at players who can be reliable deputies and give us some depth to cover the inevitable injury, suspension, fatigue etc.