Ellis H

Of course, but that’s not the same thing. He could green light a transfer over the phone but clearly we weren’t anywhere near that stage while he was away.

You think he’s been negotiating deals while on holiday?

Howe’s come back from his holiday and kicked off. This can’t be a coincidence.

Add a zero and bring Anderson home at the same time.

It’d be canny annoying if we’ve been after him for a year and haven’t yet worked out if he’s actually attainable or not. Same way we all knew Pedro only wanted to live in London a month ago.

“evaluating whether to move“

37:53

Apparently he could pay for his entire transfer fee and wages by scoring the winner in the club World Cup final.

Howe wasn't very subtle when he was irritated last summer so we might know more next week when the pre season interviews start up.

“Without going into the individual situation here, we've tried to sign several players,” Howe admitted when asked about putting sole focus on signing one player in Guehi. “It's never been about one player. It can never be about one player, because as soon as you're in that position, then your negotiation strength is over.” “So, no, we've tried for several targets, but it still has to be the right player though. And there isn't an unlimited number of players. It's not like you can, well, we'll just go on to the next one, the next one, the next one. Because then the quality dilutes and then you have to question whether you're doing the right thing for the long-term future of the club. "There isn't a bottomless pit of money. We're not able to spend that way. Everything that we do has a long-term consequence. So you've got to be very sure whatever you do is right for the long-term future and short-term future of the club.” When asked what the ‘right player’ is for Newcastle, Howe added: “The right player is multi-factored, really. “It's the right age, the right deal as in transfer fee, the right wages, then the right player to actually come into your squad, the right positional need. “There's loads of things. If one of those things is not right, especially financially for us, it puts us in a difficult situation." That’s what Howe said last summer and it’s very telling. Certainly explains why we get so hyper focused on certain players.

“Same as last year, lads?” It’s genuinely quite hard to believe we haven’t identified other/better players than the ones we’ve been chasing for multiple transfer windows. Are Elanga, Pedro, Trafford etc the best we can find? And if they are, why are we fucking around over minimal amounts of money? We will obviously have other options but given our activity they’re clearly not considered better than the usual names.

We’ve been after people like Trafford, Elanga and Pedro for ages so I wouldn’t automatically assume there’s a long list. The Guehi thing last summer also suggests that.

“We pride ourselves on identifying our targets quickly and then we have to act quickly and efficiently as a football club.” That’s from after the Chelsea game. Hopefully that’s true since we need a load of new targets.

Howe mentioned the groin injury/injuries a fair few times in February and beyond. It’s all findable. My initial post wasn’t an endorsement for DCL btw, just saying we need someone who can cover for Isak and not be injured as well.

19 goals pre February, 8 since with 4 being penalties. You could also read some Howe quotes who confirmed as much.

Isak and DCL both missed 21 games each through injury over the last two seasons according to that transfer market site. Not included are the games Isak might as well have missed since January because he was very injured.

Her aggressive ambition has been sorely missed. Impossible to say how things would have been if she’d stayed but I would be convinced she’d be trying her best for the club, Howe and us. The current lot? not so much. On Anderson, not a single person thought he’d develop so well and so quickly this time a year ago. Minteh was the golden boy who we’d definitely regret losing and who all the tears were shed over. It’s simply rewriting history to suggest selling Anderson was a huge mistake. There’s no guarantee he’d turn out this well if he’d stayed, in fact it’s very likely he wouldn’t have and most would be happy to shift him this summer.

6 points each off Sunderland, Burnley, Leeds, Tottenham and Brentford would be an excellent base to build on. Nearly half way to the CL again.

Is “rejected without counter” the new trendy thing to say? Because “rejected” was fine.

And growing up, what did the name Manchester United mean to you and were there any specific players you admired? "I think everyone in the world knows what Manchester United is. In my country it's [United] huge and obviously every kid dreams to play for a club like this so, as I said, I'm very happy to be here." Off their official site. Very generic stuff tbh.

“‘It's great that the window opens on June 1,’ he said. ‘The challenge is for us to sign players in early June. But it doesn't always work like that. I hope in reality it does, but it rarely works like that.“

He said we’d be trying to sign players in early June. He very clearly wants players in early and July isn’t early when the window has been open for a month by then.

‘It's great that the window opens on June 1,’ he said. ‘The challenge is for us to sign players in early June. But it doesn't always work like that. I hope in reality it does, but it rarely works like that.

Howe wouldn’t have been talking about speed and early June transfers for weeks if he knew we would be deliberately waiting till July.

“Paul Mitchell made no secret of his belief that the club overpaid for Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento”