TheBrownBottle

It’s more about transfer strategy than a criticism of the individuals involved. I think Barnes is a very handy PL winger - but did we need another LW? Did we need to spend c.£70m on two young fullbacks, regardless of how good they were - ahead of a RW or a RCB? It isn’t that the players signed aren’t good enough, it’s whether the strategy was for the greater good. It’s not an unreasonable point to make. Personally, I’m ok with all of those signings - again, I think we should have been better sellers.

Yep, as fucking desperate as it all is, you have to do these things. And tbf none of the players signed in the ‘first wave’ after the takeover were likely to be here for the rest of their careers. It’s sell or stand still - and last summer we decided to stand still. We can’t do it again.

I don’t think that’s what was being said, at all.

There’s still talent there, so I’d give the lad time to bed back into the squad. But it can’t go on indefinitely.

The Tonali Agenda sounds like a great ‘70s gritty crime drama

Point taken, though Hall and Livramento cost a fair bit more than that. If we’d sold a Joelinton or Almiron or Willock (or all of them) that summer we’d have got peak value for them and could’ve added to them.

I didn’t say we haven’t - in terms of successes in bringing players in, I think Howe is probably the best we’ve had. The vast majority of his signings have worked and have improved us. I think it is selling where the problem has been - I think we’ve held on to players too long, and have paid a price for that. Especially in PSR times, selling is as important as buying.

We paid market prices for those players I’d say - other than Burn. They were successful signings, but we didn’t get them at bargain valuations. Hall in particular was very expensive - irrespective of performances since.

It isn’t necessarily that we overspent on an individual player, it is that the money spent was spent by Howe on the players he chose to spend it on, and did so with few outgoings - and most of our squad players would be worth a fair bit less than they would have a year or two ago. Howe deserves a lot of credit for the success of most of our signings - but I don’t understand how he’s able to get all the credit for transfer dealings yet somehow gets to abrogate responsibility for any issues.

Howe is partly responsible for it - he’s the manager and was part of the ‘transfer committee’ that we kept hearing about. Learning about what funds are available and how PSR works isn’t exactly rocket science, and it directly impacts his job. So I’m going to go with the assumption that he isn’t stupid, and made the calls he did in the transfer market knowing how that would limit him.

No, only an FFP profit would be necessary. After this season his amortised fee would be roughly £24m - so a sale of more than that would be a ‘profit’

I’d have him in situ next season too with the same caveat as you - I’d genuinely like to see what the next stage of his build looks like.

They’ve been wrong on this consistently for yonks. I’m not sure any of them have used a calculator since they failed GCSE Maths.

Yes, I also think that he might need European football to keep his position. I don’t think we’d be able to get rid of that many players as we’d need to replace all of them. It would be crazy not to sell at least one ‘purple’ this summer, mind. It’s holding us back.

You are allowed to sell to buy, though. PSR made things difficult, not impossible. Our failure to sell well has also been an issue.

I hate losing in the FA Cup - which I should be used to by now. That was a poor performance though, and Howe will attract and deserve some reasonable criticism for it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the summer - whether Mitchell has the ruthless edge that Howe lacks re selling players. I’d like to see Howe’s NUFC ver2.0 - to see if we can adjust to a different style. ‘Intensity is our identity’ always had a limited shelf life - it would be good to see an evolution in play next season. He’s a smart bloke, so I’d hope that he has a vision for it. I’m sure he does. I suspect we will need European football for that to happen, though.

Yep, he’s got the advantage of being far side and seeing all the way up the line - and still doesn’t think to push up.

His failure in playing the offside on Welbeck was the worst of it

7th to about 14th is normally ‘midtable’

8th is midtable.

We don’t, but Brighton do? Not having that tbh. It’s the FA Cup man - and that was limp.

Another home game against a midtable side, another limp performance and defeat. These are becoming completely par for the course now. Honestly I don’t know why we even play the first XI in these matches at this point, might as well save them for matches when our one track counterattacking style might actually work. Sorry to be so negative but I bastard hate losing in the FA Cup.

Lazy play by Livramento

Ffs

Idiocy by Schar, it’s going nowhere