TheBrownBottle

It isn’t the magic bullet that most seem to be assuming it is. ‘Fair market value’ rules for sponsorship will remain in place

They could have lined up sponsors two or three years ago, and replaced them with bigger deals next summer if the Man City case comes off. There was nothing stopping them doing this - everyone seems to be clinging on to the idea that something is holding them back. What use would new sponsorship be now that the summer window has closed?

Newcastle are the perfect investment - we’ve already trebled in value. Much higher risk to investment would have been buying one of the big clubs. I don’t think this looks anything like a vanity project at the moment - so far this looks like an investment; there is a clear reluctance to throw real money around, and three years is a long time. I’ll come back to them until the evidence changes - where are the sponsors? Where is the training ground? Where is the academy? Where is the plans for a super stadium? To date, we’ve seen a level of investment which pretty much any new owner of a PL club with potential would have made. There’s nothing so far to suggest vanity purchase / sportswashing.

The lack of information has been an ongoing issue for some time, pretty much since the takeover. I don’t count Ghodoussi or Reuben talking shite on Twitter. Actual communication with the support re actual plans and where the club is going - again, ‘we’re going to be number 1’ is meaningless. The closest we’ve had was a pissed-up Staveley after the League Cup final making some ill-advised claims.

You don’t need to state a location to talk about plans

I literally don't give a shite about any of the teams who usually win it winning it. Not even Chelsea, who's wanker bone fides comfortably pre-date the Abramovich and Harding eras (i.e. when they'd won fewer trophies than West Ham)

Talk big, deliver ... not so big is the ethos

Absolute par for the course in terms of the owners - a mate of mine is a senior commercial manager on a huge project at the moment in Riyadh ultimately being built by a party which will be familiar to us. To say that they’re painfully slow and often don’t follow through would be an understatement.

They don’t need to nominate a site, they can though state what it is they intend to do.

You know, you don’t actually need a completed feasibility study to state your intentions.

Complete and utter cunt, deserves all the pelters he gets this time. Have felt sorry for him in the past as there’s clearly something not right with him, but this shite is just embarrassing. Get off social media you absolute buffoon.

Honestly, I can’t even laugh at the little cunt over this one. A fan-owned Phoenix club which has dragged itself back from the ninth tier of English football to the Football League and has built a new ground in the process, and this absolute piss stain goes down there slagging off their new ground. Stupid, embarrassing little cunt.

Forgot he even existed. What a doylem

It’s ‘’n’ anyway’, as in ‘and anyway’

The cup Gods decreed some time ago that Eddie’s Mags are not to be allowed home cup ties under any circumstances. We can’t defy them.

I’ll take a bye now tbh

It feels weird being a football fan and having a huge soft spot for the phoenix club AFC, given how much so many of us actively disliked the old Wimbledon

I was at the second one

Blue and red were not up for consideration I would bet

None of those are affected by the Man City case - they could have done any of them with zero impact on FFP. To date, they’ve done nothing.

Yep, I think 7th is par for the season, especially sans European football. I think Howe’s done an excellent job to date - it was more the idea that miracles are being performed with the current squad is what I’m arguing against. Plenty of money has been spent, and the quality is (broadly speaking) there now.

22/23 Howe performed superbly, and outpaced where we could expect to be. At this point, 7th is par - what I’m saying is that the squad isn’t average; I’m not saying Howe is a poor manager. But miracles at this point would be challenging for the title, not finishing a position or two higher than 7th. We don’t have a ‘average’ squad.

We’ve got the 7th most expensive squad - the most expensive outside of the Sky Six: https://www.transfermarkt.com/premier-league/einkaufswert/wettbewerb/GB1 edit: by quite a margin, too - our squad cost about 25m less than Liverpool’s (6th) and about 130m more than Villa’s (8th). Like I said, there’s no miracles being performed.

No worries We’ll have to agree to disagree re squad quality - I think we’ve got real quality in about two thirds of the squad. There’s some obvious deficiencies, but there’s no squad outside the top six & Villa where there’s an argument for a swap for me. Finishing below 8th with the current squad would represent failure for any manager.

Nah, Howe’s done a cracking job, but the ‘average’ players excuse doesn’t wash. How many squads in the PL would you swap with ours?