TheBrownBottle

It’s more than we’re bringing in, even if the structure is opaque. No reason that we couldn’t shove Brum’s deal down the PL’s throat.

He's managed to live in English-speaking countries for a decade without bothering to learn the lingo. I’m sure he’d also not bother to learn Arabic

Totally understand if the bloke doesn’t want to move to KSA, who would? Less sympathetic to the ‘he’s settled on Tyneside’ patter. He’s a professional footballer, moving around is what happens. It’s one of the downsides to the considerable upsides of that life. Sitting on a contract if a club has shown it wants you out isn’t usually viewed as a positive by football supporters, either. I don’t think we owe the lad.

We literally can’t win PL games with our current midfield. They’ve played four, lost four, with Villa away next. Not seeing where the embarrassment factor comes in. Their turnover is twice ours - we’re not their competitor.

JG is likely a man approaching retirement and he’s got the response of a spoiled pubescent

It’ll eat them up for years, potentially. If they don’t get promoted it’s unlikely we’ll meet them again any time soon. We wrenched their comfort blanket away and pissed on their bed.

I know where you’re coming from tbf - and I accept that I’m a wee bit impatient with this stuff. Just find it disappointing as every passing year makes it harder to pull closer and catch up to the sky six. Spurs’ revenue just went up by £100m.

Out commercials were lower than Everton’s in the last published accounts tbf. If they don’t go up a few times over the next couple of years then Eales and Silverstone need shooting into the sun

Weren’t the giving it the old ‘nowt to lose, wouldn’t worry about getting beat, they’ve spent a zillion quid and besides they’re not really NUFC anymore’ shite before the game? They’re taking it much, much, much harder than they assured themselves that they would

Unless the owners were on the training ground trying to help the players stay up, that’s not really much of a reason not to be planning. Most businesses can multitask

It does require ongoing income growth in coming years, though it’s probably a reasonable assumption that our income will grow for a couple of years yet.

I honestly thought they’d have had a lot of it already discussed amongst themselves and organised. It took 18 months for the deal to go through - it’s not as if they didn’t have the time before the sale. And over two years is a significant chunk of time to get balls rolling - I don’t understand why the first feelers only started last year.

Beat me to it

At one point it was proposed by Hall that the newly bought Newcastle Gosforth RFC (later the Falcons) would play there as part of the ‘Newcastle United Sporting Club’ thing when the club bought them out.

We’ve really missed Willock. Looking forward to him being back

I can remember a Rogan Taylor article in Total Football many years ago (late ‘90s) which argued that big football clubs should look to manufacture their own kit, as it would be far more profitable for them. Newcastle was who he cited.

Yeah, it’s easy to forget (or at least I did - that probably says more about me!) that this was the case. Seems incredible that the lad did because when he plays he just oozes cold confidence in front of goal

As much as I’m entertained by the soap opera nature of NUFC YouTube, I don’t watch it other than what’s posted here. I think I remember they had a tiff - what happened exactly?

It would no doubt. Besides, most of my team from the Indian sub-continent would probably be thinking ‘why is that daft cunt doing an impression of a Welshman?’

I do it daily. I don’t mirror to that extent, thankfully, as it would just be racist.

My favourite part of the whole saga was Lothar Mattaus of all people going on about Trippier’s age - beautifully ironic, given how old Mattaus was when he last played for Bayern. I know Mattaus was a far better player, but still …

We always were until latter-day Ashley. We’ve been on the Deloitte Rich List more times than all but 12 clubs despite that fucker. A few more times than Man City.

‘For you Tommy, ze var ist over’

We’re miles away at present. It’s why I couldn’t get over excited about how improved we were doing commercially - a team of first year marketing students could have increased Ashley’s commercials at NUFC. Given the disparity in incomes between the NE and the rest of the country (particularly London), I don’t think we’re getting to where we want to go at SJP. We would need a 70k ground with shitloads of corporate to compete long term, plus commercials on everything.

It would be zero sum, as there would be £4m incoming then £4m outgoing, so it would be cost neutral for any sell-on clause. Almiron’s original fee is amortised fully, so anything we’re not paying Atlanta goes straight into the income column. Selling Almiron would likely help fund a big signing in this window - if they want to do that.