Erikse

We are actually in a good position for this cup. Pretty much the strongest team that doesn't have Europe, which is even more games this season. As we know, this cup has the lowest priority amongst those teams. We can afford to play our strongest side without playing with too much fatigue.

Yeah, but I expect almost no gametime at all for the first half of the season, unless we are forced to play him. Howe cares a lot about the cup (no Europe), and he rarely trusts signings like these in the first few months. Not even convinced that we will start him at Wimbledon, as crazy as that might seem.

He may get 3 minutes if he is lucky.

Yeah, they sold to Clearlake, but also the contract said that Chelsea would still get all the profits from the hotels. As it currently stands, and from a financial point of view, it was basically just a donation (from my understanding of it). But ofcourse, Clearlake owns them on paper. I have no idea what they are free to do with them.

Some rumours circling today about Boehly and other Chelsea owners considering an exit. No idea where these rumours come from or how reliable they are, but this would be hilarious if it was the case. Chelsea fans have been talking about how they see the plan and the long term project.

Howe when we sign that one foreigner alongside those several british PL players

An attacking minded left back?? Christ, get out of here. We don't do that.

If he's ready to start for Italy against France, he should be ready to start against Wolves.

The injury against Man City in his third game was extremely frustrating. All I could think was "why can't we ever have nice things??" It's the most Newcastle thing to happen ever. Houghton was manager that season, he might've played him more than what Pardew did if he didn't get injured.

Didn't run back that one time!

If this is the way Howe likes to do things, and he thinks that this is the best way to do it, I personally don't think that he would care about it being talked about in the public domain. Unless he's not proud of his own ways of doing things. But I can't speak for him, obviously.

And what if all of these are true, and he is just trying to be transparent in the public? Did it not suit your narrative? I don't mind communication and transparemcy with the public. We used to have none of that. If Howe did the same, even indicating that Mitchell was running the show this summer, you would be here complaining about how everything is Mitchells fault.

Uh? Willock did 2 sub appearances after the hamstring, and then started the next one, one week after the first sub appearance. Soon after he did his achilles. After the achilles injury he had 1 sub appearance, and then he was starting the next one 3(!) days later. Didn't take long until he was out again. What "ramp up period"? Can you give me examples? And don't give me examples of players who probably wouldn't make the starting 11 anyways. I'm sure he will take more time in this case since the injury lasted for nearly a year, but that's what any manager would do.

Well, that works both ways, doesn't it? They could also argue that theh are happy to play us away now, for the very same reason.

How much do clubs add to the price of players in january, though? Like 30%? Wouldn't be surprised if Parish thinks that the mid season factor evens out the price drop from the 1,5 year contract. Judging by his dealings this summer, I'm not convinced that he will be desperate to sell in january. I'm not necessarily saying £70m, but around that. That also includes prices like £65m.

He'd try to get a similar price, just because january.

He's going to blame our fanbase when they go down.

But I was told that it would've been a sideways move for Guehi?

Love this: "But when we would walk out towards training he would be like, 'I'm going to nutmeg you, you and you today,' and he could take the ball and just go past five or six, take it around the 'keeper and have an empty net but take the ball back to go around a defender again. David Meyler reflecting on his time at Hull.

God I wish we played him every game when he was here.. Him constanly sitting on the bench or even in the stands was mad frustrating. I just wanted to see Ben Arfa do his magic. Instead we were stuck with Obertan..

It's actually kind of funny how different they are. It's almost as if Howe just went "I'm sick and tired of these little magic tricks, give me the most direct winger you can find".

I've had this discussion here a couple of times before, but I think he's really underrated in terms of assisting goals. His assist to Gordon looked very much like some of those he did at Leicester, and he can put in good deliveries with his left aswell. It's no coincidence that he has a high assist number throughout his carreer, almost as high as his goal count. But some point to his xA and suggest that those number are lying. Just like Leicester had when he was there, we also have effective attacking players to convert from various situations. Against Bournemouth his xA was 0.31, but his assist was brilliant. If we didn't see the assist and would judge purely based on the numbers, we would assume that he was lucky to get an assist that game, and that the finisher should get most of the credit for the goal. This is small scale, but I'm convinced that this translates to many of his assists at Leicester aswell. And just to add, he will probably also make some weird choices and put in some headless crosses at times, not denying that. But just like with his finishing, he has his moments where he creates a decent chance from a tricky situation.

I really thought that one of the reasons for bringing in Osula would be to take minutes off of Isak when Wilson is out. Like when Isak is getting really tired, and we are up by a goal or so.

They rejected 140m euros for him last summer. Insane.

Oh I actually didn't see it, that's funny. Usually noone bothers to look these things up, so I just assumed that noone had done it.