Keegans Export

Saying players can only leave on our terms is the only sensible position to take tbf. Saying "not for sale at all" would come across as delusional, which is what I've criticised him for in the past (specifically the 2030 thing)

Hopefully the extra income will help us convince players to join our Club.

F**k you, I've already ordered my Eduardo #9 shirt for our 2030 Champions League winning campaign

He's not going to be attainable to anyone until the end of the year tbf

I don't think so. The cost of running an Academy is but not paying transfer fees and wages. Could be wrong obviously.

This is about Villa but may be relevant to us regarding the assumed failing of UEFAs rules; What I think this means is that anyone currently on our UEFA list that we sell must be replaced by someone who costs less - presumably that's wages + amortisation.

Does he still have the clout? If we're looking at players 18-24 then I'm not sure he does. I'd say they're much more likely to go with a younger coach, unless they get lucky with a big name (Ashley managing to bring in Rafa for example). Someone like McKenna or Carrick (if he doesn't get the Man Utd job). Not sure what the list of non-UK based equivalents would look like.

I don't think that's what this is though. It's more that he will be judged on his performance this season and there are seven games left of that season to determine where we end up. Especially considering we read so much about how much we need time on the training ground - we're definitely going to get that between now and the end of May. There's also the consideration of how this will look to players both inside and outside the club. What standards are we holding ourselves to? If we want these 2030 claims to be believed, can you justify going "Yeah, that's fine" if we have a poor end to the season and finish 12th? The only reason these seven games (that's nearly 20% of the league campaign) may end up as make-or-break is because the performances and results haven't been good enough for the proceeding 31.

The Sunderland results would have absolutely no baring on whether I'd say this season has been a success or not. Lose to them twice but finish 5th = success Beat them twice and finish 11th = not a success Luke Edwards has been saying for months, even since the Isak debacle, that the aim is to qualify for Europe. Like him or not, he's got a source or sources very well placed, so these comments from Hopkinson don't really surprise me at all.

Has @Paully been given the old Turkish embassy treatment...?

Palace & Birmingham both won so that's 3 points from third (play-off) and 6 points from the second automatic promotion spot. With three games left it's a reasonable assumption that they've fucked it.

They've been very fortunate up to this point that their manager (and obviously, credit for hiring him in the first place has to be given) has taken the 7th/8th most expensive squad and finished 4th, 7th and 5th. And won a cup.

Well it's just as well we've shown so much willingness to engage in legal challenges against the Premier League...

...at Arsenal/Man City/Chelsea/Liverpool....

According to Transfermarkt he's torn his ACL and isn't due back until October. Put him in our treatment room and that'll be October 2027.

Or, look at Spurs, absolutely no leadership there whatsoever and it could see them relegated. We've already got plenty of "sellable" assets with presumably a few more to come so there's absolutely nothing wrong with potentially taking a hit on a player further on in their career.

At the very least I hope we grow some balls and make it clear - this is the price, this is the deadline. Either of those not met & you're staying put. Also, how moronic to say he can leave if we don't make it into Europe next season. Not ideal if one of our key players is going to benefit from us failing to achieve our goals. It should be "The price is £90m, knock £10m off if we get into Europe"

Last 7 games of previous seasons; 24/25 W3 D1 10pts 23/24 W4 D1 13pts 22/23 W3 D3 12pts 21/22 W5 D0 15pts So 12-13pts on average, which would be 54-55pts by the end of the season. Thank you @Coffee_Johnny for doing what I've done but better and faster

Liverpool never really felt like an end destination and it seemed odd he was so desperate to go there. Obviously a step up from us, no argument there, but even during the Klopp years Liverpool were always a tier down from the absolute elite clubs (eg Barcelona) who, if he considers himself one of the top few strikers in the world, you'd assume he'd want to play for at some point.

I'm not sure how these line up - if European qualification is "crucial" will Howe still have the "full support" to be involved in the summer rebuild if we finish 11th for example?

Who will somehow refer to him as Herman Goering

These are all absolutely valid points and we are probably going to have to hit the reset button to an extent. Post-takeover Newcastle United 1.0 has just about run it's course so we're going to have to work out what version 2.0 is going to look like. Having said that, if we are going for a rebuild that has to mean the expectations on the manager change too. If we lose two of Tonali, Tino, Gordon and replace them with five or six U23s from Europe/Brazil then there has to be an acceptance that it might take a couple of seasons for that rebuild to take shape.

It's not controversial, but it's not an absolute "gotcha" argument-winner either. We're currently 12th I think. Let's say we finish there. Surely nobody would argue that's below par? On that basis there is probably a reasonable pool of managers who could do better than that with the 7th/8th most expensive squad in the league. Likewise if we can turn things around a bit and finish 7th/8th then you'd say that's about par and your chances of finding an improvement reduce. That's why I'm not in the "Howe Out" camp. I'm not happy with where we are currently but we have 7 games, all ~ a week apart, only one of which is against a team we'd expect to finish below in the table. Put a run together, finish 7th/8th, then the worst we can probably level at him is that he still struggles to balance both league and European campaigns. In that case, give him a season in the Europa/Conference to work it out. But if we stay off the pace even with the time on the training ground then I think it's fair to say either his methods have gone stale or the players are not responding to him as a coach and I can't see how you fix that without making a change, even knowing that there is always a risk that the replacement you bring in does even worse.

On who could replace Howe - it kind of depends where we end up this season. If we go on a run and end up 7th/8th then I'd say that's about par and replacing him is going to be 50/50 at best. But if we stay 11th/12th? Especially if that points gap to 7th widens, and we don't see a substantial improvement with more time to train/coach, then it's probably fair to say the chances of someone coming in and doing better than that increase.

Nothing soothes the mind after a crushing derby defeat than a new Chief Strategy Officer