TheBrownBottle

I don’t think that contradicts what Jagten or I said tbf

We’d make a lot more profit from Bruno = more money to spend. Our back line has been badly exposed without Botman - and he’s clearly still unfit. I think you’re looking at a player is who likely to be one of the world’s best centre halves in the next few years. Bruno is at his peak now.

Ideally we keep all three, of course. But we’re talking hypotheticals.

We don’t win without Bruno statistically, it’s true. But I do think Bruno is more replaceable - there are more quality midfielders kicking around than centre backs and forwards atm. Isak is lethal when half fit - the lad has buckets of potential. Replacing a player on track for a 20-goal-season isn’t straightforward

Bruno, if it came down to losing a body part

We haven’t added a lot of new sponsorships. We added Sela - which brought in an extra c.£20m. It’s very, very likely that we’d need to sell to buy anyone who isn’t cheap in Jan. The CL money for the groups would most likely have already been spent for FFP purposes in the summer. The club are unlikely to leave it for January. It’s not about cash flow - that’s not going to be a problem for our owners. It’s the FFP stuff - and that is for accounts for year, not month-by-month.

Yeah, that was what I saw from Tonali - admittedly via a handful of European games last season; I haven’t watched Serie A for a long time. He has never looked like a great technical footballer.

Their argument would be that they could get that money off another company in the market. Not saying that the rules are ok, but they wouldn’t run afoul of what’s in place

Independent regulation would be what I would want to see. She might be a Tory, but I thought Tracey Crouch was right on a lot of this stuff.

That wouldn’t surprise me - especially in terms of inheritance! It also should be an amber flag - back of house staff costs are not hobbled by FFP - we could hire the best in the business with zero impact to FFP, if we’re serious about it. See also: training facilities. edit: should have read ‘wouldn’t’. As if Ashley had a commercial team …

I know. It’s grim

FMV is the dodgiest part of the ‘FFP’ shite for me. Other clubs deciding what another club should be able to bring in. We know this would be thrown out in any adjudication - it’s lunacy by the PL clubs.

No, I know it wasn’t directed at me personally. Just think that it’s best to ‘cool jets’ on talking about people ‘not deserving a football club’. Some of us remember when Newcastle United’s existence was under threat - even the dafties going overboard on Howe don’t deserve that. It’s all just opinions - theirs are no less valid than mine or yours.

Fuck me, imagine letting off someone you think is guilty of rape because they play for your club? Or convicting an innocent man because he plays for your rivals? Grim.

They’re not that new in fairness. A year and a half is plenty of time to get some deals in.

It wouldn’t prevent related party sponsorships if they’re not overboard (can’t remember if the limit is £1m or £500k where FMV doesn’t apply, also). How much does it cost to be Man Utd’s official tractor partner? Then knock 75-80% off that

I can’t do it Beren - I’ve tried getting the contempt off my face, but it’s impossible. I do have a natural sneer tbf, so that doesn’t help.

I haven’t called for Howe to be sacked. And pressure isn’t created by daft cunts on Twitter - it’s created by match-going supporters. I’m not one of those anymore. The online ‘banter’ brigade tends to be an international collection of fucking weirdos, who go on about ‘Penaldo’ and other shite. They’re not football fans at all as far as I’m concerned - I doubt they’ve ever been to a game in their lives. They just comment on Twitter and YouTube.

I don’t think our shiny new commercial team has done a particularly good job to date tbh. The Sela and Noon deals were PIF ones; getting adidas to do your football kits is hardly the deal of the century.

I can deal with ‘false 9’ and ‘double pivot’ easier tbf. Still think the ‘double pivot’ thing is a bit wank; it’s basically playing with two half-backs, as football did for decades without calling them ‘pivots’.

You know, some of us were watching this club in a crumbling SJP with crowds under 20,000 and with relegation to the third tier a very likely prospect. I know that is the case for some of those criticising Howe. The club wouldn’t exist for those who came along a lot later without that. Probably best to knock this kind of patter on the head.

Yeah, just saw that. An Ashworth appointment. There is something very wrong in that dept at the moment. Hopefully this is the beginning of getting it fixed.

Longstaff is a decent PL player and an academy product. We won’t be getting rid any time soon

I agree - but I won’t hold my breath. I’d be happy to see a massive clear out

We were linked to Ba in the late ‘90s. He always looked like he was going to be a cracking winger. Also, the bleached barnet preferred by flair players of the mid- to late-‘90s is still burned into my memory banks, watching Gazzetta hungover to buggery