TheBrownBottle

It doesn’t if he wants off - our negotiating hand is completely fucked

From the lowest possible starting base - commercial revenue shrank under Ashley not allowing for inflation. Any knacker could’ve significantly increased commercials - but now the biggest deals are signed, and frankly they’re not particularly impressive. The adidas one in particular should be raising eyebrows, given it locks us in until the end of the decade for a shitload less than any of the sky six.

The club has made a complete and utter pigs ear of all of this The lad should’ve been offered a new deal yonks ago - if anyone at the club was stupid enough to think ‘we’ve got him on a three year contract yet’, then hopefully they’re disabused. If the lad is publicly wanting to go, that knocks tens of millions off the asking price

Too fucking right I love players like Wissa, personally - I’ve said it before but I’d have taken him ahead of Pedro or Ekitike (I was lukewarm on both) when we were linked. Get the lad in, and assuming Isak stays, watch as he bags 20 goals in all comps despite not being first choice

As much as I enjoy watching fans set precise numbers around player values, transfer fees traditionally were about what the player offered against the cost. A player’s value is what a club is prepared to pay, not a number you’ve arbitrarily decided upon. Wissa is a proven PL quality forward who knows where the net is and grafts his bollocks off - if those sort of players don’t excite you, you’re watching the wrong sport. This is Newcastle United FFS - if there’s anything that we should know about or get excited about, it’s signing goal scorers.

I don’t trust anyone who calls football ‘footy’

Actually need evidence they’re doing that is the problem

I love the fakeness of their attempt to get foreign clubs to be their ‘friends’ - it’s never about positive interactions in previous matches (have to play in Europe for that), it’s about oddball self-aggrandisement. It’s always a spurious myth they’ve made up to insert themselves into another club’s history (founding / colours / nickname / badge etc), which shows them how important they are despite all evidence to the contrary. Which is why these ‘friendships’ aren’t formed with third tier Estonian clubs - they have to be reasonably ‘big’ clubs from major leagues.

How do they know this stuff before we do? We should replace the local hacks with anonymous knackers from RTG. Actually, that might not be the worst idea - at least it would be entertaining

He was their first striker last season - he’s their no.9

If it does go through, then as @r0cafella says amortisation gives considerable incentive to extend contracts as far as possible, so I reckon it will be a four or five year deal, as crackers as that is on paper for a guy who’ll be 29 shortly

We need reasons?

Agreed - and as always, doing so with zero fucking analysis. Yes, he’s a bit of a chancer - but why was that not obvious? There were issues within days of his appointment. Why is there a massive vacuum in executive positions? Is there an actual vision for how the club will be run? I get it’s too much to ask to have actual journalists covering NE football, but it might actually produce some copy for them beyond pretending to have insider knowledge on transfers.

Eh? We were ahead of Chelsea, Man City and Spurs for much of the Hall / Shepherd era. We were richer than Arsenal and Liverpool for some of it. We absolutely were - John Hall was advocating joining a European Super League and all sorts. This is a bizarre rewriting of history

I’d hold Howe partially accountable rather than blameless - he’s chased two DoFs and is one of the three member transfer committee; the others being his nephew and his chief scout. I don’t see how he’d have zero accountability - they’re his targets

We got Tonali against zero competition, and I still think from an AC Milan who knew what was coming re Tonali

We were daft enough to be used twice

Mitchell must have negotiated a reduced wage then - only thing he got right

We’re not in that bracket of clubs which can offer the salaries needed, ambitions or not. We’re got the 7th highest turnover in the league, and the gap to 6th is a significant nine figure sum

We might sell a purple this summer - and probably should have in all honesty

I’d rather have Wissa than Ekitike tbh - I’d rather have someone who I know can do it, rather than someone who might do it (and I have suspicions won’t)

Re the fee if (massive if) we got him for £30m on a four year deal (given his age), then the transfer fee is amortised at roughly half the money received for Longstaff. £7.5m per season for relatively guaranteed PL quality is not to be sniffed at

I think Wissa is quality - age would be the only concern, but he’s been superb since switching to the centre (though of course he can play anywhere across the front line). If we’re able to get him it would make perfect sense- can’t see Brentford being easy sellers, though.

If he’s too ill to do the job then he shouldn’t be there.

We bid, it was rejected, we didn’t rebid. Not seeing the holes - that’s how we normally operate. Had Liverpool not come in the likelihood is that we’d have fannied on for months with him.