TheBrownBottle

He definitely did - huge reno grants from central govt, too Plus a lucky break generally - the original plan was for some shops and a play area for kids. It was the big retailers + Marks and Sparks showing significant interest that created the Metro Centre. Hall got lucky - it wasn’t because he was a ‘visionary’

I thought twice as Shadow Puppets seems canny and I didn’t want to have a go - but I couldn’t resist

It’s the definition of hearsay in fairness

Not like him to misuse the club for his own ends, like.

Son of a miner, trained by the NCB, donor and worshipper of Thatcher who got his knighthood for said donations. Good to see that our club’s ground is being used for a Tory leadership candidate’s campaign, though. Just because all the Newcastle seats have seen a single Tory MP elected in my lifetime, you’d think we don’t like the cunts.

Yeah, I see that - but if Howe and Mitchell between them can’t come up with better centre back options than Burn and Krafth (and Schar tbh) with £65m then that would be truly worrying.

It’s an unusually unsavvy response from Howe, who is normally impeccable in pressers. The logic in what he’s said is deeply flawed. You can’t be making club record bids and then claiming PSR has fucked you and we haven’t got the money to improve. i completely understand why he’d want Guehi, who would instantly make us a better side. But he’s not the only centre back out there - and for those sort of numbers, all but a handful of current centre backs might have been bought.

Failure is too strong a word - I thought it was a pretty good season, though one which could easily have been really good without that injury-hit disaster period in December. Where we were a few years ago isn’t relevant to what the expectations should be, though. Rafa finishing 13th in his final season wasn’t a failure - finishing 13th this season would (correctly) cost Howe his job. Mike Ashley didn’t spend £500m on transfer fees in two and a bit years. Also, we finished seventh

Yeah, that’s how it looks to me too. A genuine attempt to compete but turnover hasn’t risen at a commensurate rate (our revenues are as far behind Spurs as they were when we were taken over), so we’ve been unable to close the gap and are now left with a smattering of genuinely quality acquisitions and a bunch of Ashley-era triers who’ve been optimised by a superb coach. And those acquisitions have left us with pretty much no more financial wriggle-room - and our inability to offload the Ashley-era players meant that there’s sod all else coming in. There’s no easy fix to this atm

Todd Boehly likely views paying the sell-on clause to himself as an FFP workaround

Club is cursed

I agree, and I’ve already wrote it but my suspicion is that if we end the window empty-handed that all parties at the club will start leaking furiously to the press to apportion blame.

I’d back Howe over anyone currently at the club, but the interview in Germany re Mitchell did feel like a dummy spit. Pretty much the only time I’ve seen the otherwise media-savvy hyper professional How drop his guard

Gomez in a part ex to Liverpool feels more likely atm

The evidence is pointing in the direction of there being something to what’s Hope saying

I don’t disagree - but I also think it is where the game is now

Then you’ll understand Fezzle’s point that the sales fell into last season’s accounts, so the net spend for 24/25 isn’t £zero …

I agree - Kelly replaces Dummett to me - so that is strengthened

Anyone else feel like different hacks are going to start leaking stories placing blame on different parties at NUFC? A power struggle played out in the press. I hope not, like.

CL money was last season; adidas only kicked in this season - they effectively balance each other out, so in real terms our income hasn’t increased from last season to this season edit: don’t forget we needed Minteh and Anderson sales to balance the FFP books last season.

I suspect there was a few who did - and they’re likely the angriest people in the world at the moment. Most of the rules constraining us were already in place in 2021 - anyone who thought this was Man City MkII was living in blissful ignorance.

No reason we can’t - we’ve got a good squad and a good manager

I don’t think we have £60m to spend this summer - I still think that the Guehi bid would have needed clawbacks either this window or in Jan / June next year. We haven’t sold anyone and our wages and transfer amortisation is more or less 100% of turnover. And we’ve still done diddly squat in terms of commercials (and the commercials aren’t out there to cover a transfer of Guehi’s size in any case). We either need to start selling some of our ‘purples’ or the board need to start getting a lot more creative in terms of income; otherwise, we’re going to be like a becalmed sailing ship for quite a while yet.

If this transfer doesn’t go through, I know that there will be a big supporter inquest into the transfer window. But I suspect it will in the long term go down as one of the worst pieces of business in football history in terms of Palace - they won’t get near these numbers next summer, when they likely will sell, and every position in the PL is worth c.£3m per placing - so Guehi isn’t worth the likely transfer fee drop off to keep him onboard for a season. Classic example of cutting your nose to spite your face.