Checko

Realistically I think it's now Tino time - he needs to play going forward. There's obviously financial value in getting a fee for Tripps now, and salary off the book. There's also value to having a quality rotation option and senior pro in the squad. Particularly as we have two talented young fullbacks to mentor. He's been clear he wants to go into coaching when he retires, so that rotational, mentoring senior pro role might transition well to being a coach. Really depends on whether he wants this role now, or if he wants to be 1st choice while he can still play.

Just as a recent historical comparison, Chris Hughton won the Championship with a recently relegated team with 94 points, plus 45 GD and best defensive record in the league in his first season of management. Winning points scores in years after: 99 (Wolves - Santo) , 94 (Norwich - Farke), 93 (Leeds - Bielsa), 97 (Norwich - Farke), 90 (Fulham - Silva), 101 (Burnley - Kompany). Thinking back from my perspective, I really liked Hughton and was annoyed at him being sacked (he did a good job and was a classy guy), but I didn't think he was necessarily a top level manager. Had he been replaced by, say, a Rafa level guy instead of Pardew, I might have been more sympathetic to the decision to replace him.

Thank you for your service.

Feels like the end of a era - only Lascelles left from the Championship squad? (Think I read they did paid out Hayden't contract)

Like the use of the round NUFC badge - think it looks way better for casuals.

Perhaps should be in the realistic transfer targets thread tbh

Small sample size and I know he made a couple of errors, but Muric at Burnley has some crazy good stats as per FB ref https://fbref.com/en/players/99aa1a84/Arijanet-Muric

Or maybe start him again from Jack0?

If none of these come off I move that admin rename him JackSchitt.

I'm guessing you'll make an offer - and as a free agent he'd be a fool not to wait for all the offers to come in. Do you think the uncertainty around your manager situation is slowing you down here? Both you and Chelsea are more prestigous, can presumably offer more money and the potential of immediate European football, which I'd imagine is a draw for a footballer who's never played in Europe. Chelsea would also basically guarantee him a silly contract and then an attempt to flip him for FFP profit in a couple of years. Our one advantage in negotiations is that we have managerial stability right now & the boss definitely wants him and has a clear plan for him, and has a good track record in improving players. With our CB injuries he'll definitely get a decent shot - he would be the obvious long-term Schar successor if he's good. This is a massive contract & career decision for him though, so he shouldn't rush it.

I've heard Gordon say he prefers the left but I've not heard him say he dislikes the right, just it's not his first option. I've heard him describe his versatility as an asset. Mind you I haven't heard everything he's said. Re: Barnes - I think there was sense in buying him: a premier league proven player in his prime & we took advantage of a relagation. Also, at the time we got him we didn't know Gordon was going to start smashing it on the left wing and squads need quality depth. We lost a LW in ASM & replaced him. For the money I don't think he was a massive bargain or a transformative signing like a Bruno, but he was a solid enough signing IMO. Just a shame he got that freak injury during our toughest part of the season.

Maybe a cheeky little appearence clause or not-getting-relegated fee.

Bored now, when does football start?

From the bat emoji at the bottom I'm taking it to mean that he is actually Batman. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Shhh, don't tell them that.

Wouldn't be surprising if true. Doesn't Pep always leave at the end of contracts and he's been laying the groundwork for this in recent interviews. Feels like he wasn't going to leave Man C till he'd won the Champions League but now he's won that and everything else, what more is there for him to do?

Apparently they do: https://thomaslyte.com/sky-bet-efl-trophies-designers-makers/

Yeah, also people like to focus only on net transfer spend, but wages are another big factor and we're only in 9th on that list apparently, spending about 76% as much as Villa and Spurs, around half what Arsenal does and about 44% of the Manchester clubs: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13363469/20-Premier-League-clubs-ranked-wage-bills-agree-explore-introducing-salary-cap-2025-26-season.html Or for people who don't want to use a daily fail link below has the same table: https://www.sportbible.com/football/premier-league/premier-league-salary-cap-man-utd-city-wage-813480-20240429

Bring the Geordie Dwight Gayle home!

Just need to keep the band together now, lose a couple of the ageing groupies and maybe get a top notch trumpet player in.

Yeah I think he kind of always wants to play that advanced right-sided 8 role as that's what's been drilled into him. Even when we played more 442 vs Burnley he still seemed to play the exact same way.

Don't know about the last month of the season, but there's a quote where he says 'West Ham on 30th March was "the first time in a while I've been excited to come in and play, just because I know I wasn't going to be in pain"' (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5404865/2024/04/11/newcastle-injury-nightmare/)

What a bugger, feels like a bit of a wasted season in a way: had a 20 goal striker, a world class CM, our first 10 goal and assist player in decades, fourth best goal difference in the league, highest premier league goal total in our history and didn't even get Europe out of it! With all the cup draws and injuries felt we were due a tiny bit of karma. This was about as tough a year as we could have had. Still, despite that it's been a season where we've beaten Villa 5-1, Spuds 4-0, knocked Man U and C out of the EFL, an 8-0 away win, beat PSG 4-1, there's been some fantastic days and performances for what feels like an underwhelming season. Hopefully we can bring in a couple of real quality additions on top of the frees - we got Isak, Bruno and Botman with no Europe so it can be done. Trim some of the fringe players and the squad's looking a lot stronger and deeper and ready to go for next year.

Fallen on his feet. Good luck to him.

Depends how you want to define 'abysmal' really. I haven't actually said that. I've never watched him play other than a couple of games against us. He produced a lovely dinked last year though was offside. All I can say is that from the stats he has underperformed his xG in every year but one where he was more or less on it and that over the last 7 years he's achieved 76.5% of the open play goals he should have done based on xG, which indicates to me that he's not a very clinical finisher. He's only marginally better than finishing laughing stock Darwin Nunez, who's got a 71% rate for Liverpool (though actually ranks close to expected over his career). That doesn't mean he's not a good player or wouldn't be a good signing. But yeah, he's an abysmal finisher