Kooiman

Isak's best option is to wait 12 months as bias-laden as that might sound. If he goes to Chelsea he's not getting any real loyalty. They'll pick whoever scores and if Maresca struggles he's gone. Liverpool is likely a good fit tactically, but I'm not entirely sure how Ekitike, Wirtz and him play together. Real Madrid might want a striker in 12 months, as will Barcelona to replace Lewandowski. Going now only gives you one proper option.

Interesting. If I'd have a pint of optimist juice I'd say he profiles slightly similar to Isak. He's rangy, had early promise, but hasn't quite hit the big boy goalscoring numbers. If I'm a cynic, he can barely break 15 in the Bundesliga. The summer window is feeling hectic.

So I think some of my caution is baked into this right here. We've watched Chelsea sell themselves a hotel. We watched Liverpool flog two midfielders to Saudi for 50m the other summer. I don't see those levers as being accessible to this football club, including new sponsors. It was a carry on to get one Saudi investor as a sponsor, even though the likes of Man Utd struck a deal with a Saudi company and Arsenal had Visit Rwanda on their arm. When I try to evaluate the routes to glory here, I see us getting trapped in a cyclical routine whereby we find someone like Isak or Bruno and are then forced to sell them to the same teams we aspire to be next to. When we try to maximise other revenue streams (often via routes other teams have used) we are told that it needs to be ratified by the league, or that there's an emergency meeting to discuss whether it's legal. No amount of good planning or shrewd thinking gets you over that wall. One might even argue that Isak came to us because he saw it as a stepping stone to something more, and how on earth do you break that way of thinking?

Respectfully though, how on earth do we move onto the next phase? We've had arguably our best Premier League season and our star striker wants out to a club that has already spent more in one summer on two players than we've spent in an entire window, ever. I get it 'takes time', but if someone could genuinely explain to me how we get close to those teams I'd love to hear it. We were dreaming of finding a more consistent replacement for Callum Wilson, Liverpool and Chelsea are potentially dreaming of spending between 2-300m on forwards alone. Even if the argument is that Liverpool are league champions, we were three points behind Chelsea this season. They've already spent 250m and are potentially open to splashing 150m on Isak. I can sort of understand a financial disparity between top and bottom of the league, but how have we let the league get to a place where the likes of ourselves and Villa are spending pennies on the pound compared to teams that are just a place or two ahead of us?

Sounds harsh, but the way he goes on is a reminder about who we want at this club going forward. I don't doubt teams have sniffed, made their interest known, but he keeps it professional and does the job.

Salary and transfer caps are always tricky to enforce and you end up having teams break it through skullduggery. The closest I see to a solution is a luxury tax. EDIT: I also wonder when teams outside of the big six will start to realize what this type of stuff means for them. It's confirmation that your best bet of a day in the sun is a cup and nothing else. We've ended a 70 year trophy drought and got Champions League football and we can't afford to keep our best player, this is after basically getting every major transfer right in several years and taking three transfer windows off to let things cool down. Meanwhile the club's who can buy our star striker have spent several hundred million already this summer on competing players. If you can't launch your project after the season we've had, when can you?

I wonder if Martin's absence could be because he's been planned as bait in a transfer with another goalkeeper....

Oh well. He’s made it clear and I’m usually of the opinion that once you want to explore your options you can’t really go back. Shades of Yohan Cabaye about the whole thing in truth. His timing is particularly crap, even if he was waiting to see what the club would do in the window before committing to a decision. As I said elsewhere, this is another great example of how PSR strangles the ambitious who sit outside traditional elite. If he was given the wage he wants then there’s several others with cause to demand a bump and suddenly that one raise because four or five. So instead we’re likely to sell him to a team that has already spent 200m on attackers including the one we wanted to succeed him. The fact we won a cup and finished isn’t enough, which tells me that money alone isn’t the issue here.

I appreciate a lot of these insider pieces are access journalism, but some of the anecdotes attached to Paul Mitchell indicate he was brash. That can potentially work if you're all building something new as it sets the tone, but less so when the group has worked together for a long time before you. To come in and instantly poke holes in things rather than approach it from 'Wow, you've done great, here's how I think I can help' is naive or arrogant depending on how you see it (it may even be both). If Eddie Howe survives this season he will be behind Sir Bobby and Kevin Keegan as longest serving Newcastle managers in modern times. Given the nature of football these days that's particularly impressive. The tenure doesn't only speak to his quality but also his influence on the club. These are firmly his players now, and the fact he has a trophy only enhances his sway. If we're set on appointing a DOF, I think we need someone with an awareness to that situation and how to navigate it diplomatically.

I'd echo this re: West Ham. I remember last year thinking someone like Southampton might come up and cause problems, but even against ourselves, it was clear what the gap was and that even if you can pass it fairly well you need decisive players. Every team is quicker, smarter, and more technical and essentially the promoted teams are playing the equivalent of an in-form top three Championship team every week at a bare minimum. I think we saw it really clearly in the last derby actually. Joelinton comfortably racing away from Trai Hume. Isak putting O'Nien on his arse. Gordon selling Ballard one for the penalty. For all the chaos and bluster it wasn't fight that beat them, it was three moments of quality. Even things like the high-press will be way more efficient and coordinated. I think it's never been harder to make the step up, and while I think Sunderland have picked up some solid lads from abroad, their season really hangs on their weakest links.

I don't fundamentally disagree with your point about it never really being a 20 team league. In the first 10-12 years of the Premier League you had four winners, and in the last 10-12 years we've had four winners. In both cases there was a one-time winner among the pack in Blackburn and Leicester. People aren't opposed to legitimate footballing dynasties, but they are opposed to reserved seating at the dance. What that list of winners in the first ten years won't show you is how close we came to winning the big prize (on more than one occasion no less) as did Aston Villa in the first year of the league. There was an aspirational element to things whereby if you did get ambitious, and bought the right kinds of players, you could have a run at it. That was Blackburn Rovers. Under Fredy Sheppard the closest we came was third, I'll grant you that, but the landscape is far different now. If Fredy had found oil in his back garden or diamonds under the sofa he could have invested that money into the club and (with the right advice) got us across the line. I'm not entirely sure how to chart that same path to a league title these days. We've spent the last week concerned that Liverpool are going to take Alexander Isak. While £120-150m will do wonders for the balance sheet, we'll need to find a suitable replacement to keep pace and players like that aren't in large supply. Equally, we took a sizable risk signing him from Real Sociedad. Our reward is a load of goals, a League Cup trophy, and maybe a large fee, but wouldn't it be better if we could build alongside him instead of hope to catch him up in a few years time? Those mega deals provide financial headroom to the club, but they require us selling to the same teams we're looking to compete against. You might cite Andy Cole, but not long after that we signed Alan Shearer. You simply can't do that now. The rules dictate that you can't grow at a rate faster than the tank you inhabit and that's never really how football has worked. If that approach was staving off clubs going into financial bother I could understand, but I'm sure we can all list several in the EFL right now that are fighting a crap owner or the consequences of crap decisions. I would hate for us football fans to console ourselves with the idea that because the league was never the personification of parity that we should be content with a pack of teams that only changes at the bottom of the table. I understand why people felt so much of our gripe with PSR was because of the success we wanted, and I understand why so many refused to do anything that helped a PIF lead project, but in reality, we were only seeking the kind of opportunity that every football fan would want - to be the best team in England for a moment.

I would also say the erosion of continuity on the sporting side and a distinct lack of succession planning hampered us. Man Utd and Arsenal had Sir Alex and Arsene Wenger that presented a clear road map for the club on the pitch during that decade. Chelsea came and bought any old sod, but they could afford to do that. It's no surprise that once both men left their clubs they had struggles, while Chelsea continued with a boom and bust cycle that felt comfortable to them.

In a broader sense, it's a net positive outcome for Burnley. Sell him and they likely break a record for the most expensive English goalkeeper. Retain him and they have a highly promising goalkeeper that did tremendously well for them last season. That said, something seems off about the Man City interest. It's hugely contingent on them selling players first and I don't know how the percentage clause and the buyback fee co-exist. If the fee is a flat £40m and voids the additional clause then I can see why they're trying to negotiate it down. That said, it's further proof we're not being unrealistic with our offer. If Man City are now trying to reduce the fee below the £32million they'd be due to pay (after the % clause is applied) that means our bid is likely higher which makes it hard to understand why they wouldn't accept that offer and force Man City match us. I said earlier in the month this felt like a pressure tactic and my opinion hasn't changed just yet. Maybe Man City swoop in and make me look rather stupid, but I think for now we can hold our ground a little bit and see how the supposed negotiations with Man City play out (if at all).

I'm surprised he's lasted this long. If we're piling on the negotiators at the club, it seemed odd we didn't offer Forest money for one of their better young players like other clubs have done. At least there's a slim chance they turn out to be good or sellable down the line.

Grew up with Lua-Lua posters on his bedroom wall I heard.

Spurs have to be mindful of the Gibbs-White deal though. If they've admitted defeat in that pursuit then fair play, but I'd imagine any move for Wissa would require someone like Richarlison moving on (although I've seen reports of Son leaving too).

Forest's bid is irrelevant unless they come back in for him. Man Utd just paid 70m for Mbeumo. We'd be wise not to fall into the same trap. In reality, I would picture Wissa being with us for two seasons max and then heading back to France. I know there's a growing narrative of us being total idiots (and there's some good evidence to back that up) but bar Trafford I don't see a lot of options to do things differently than we have done.

He's touching 29, is in his last 12 months, and managed over 15 goals in a top league for the first time in his career. As a starting point I don't hate it.

This feels the best place for this. I've been trying to figure out why football seems less spontaneous than it used to be when I was growing up. I think there are many reasons, but I struck upon a tweet the other day that said the modern generation is so terrified of being perceived. This was a response to the original poster mocking MTV playing a show in the 90s that was just people dancing on the beach at Spring Break. It made me think of football and how aside from data, we're obsessed with player compilations of single games or single moments. We're constantly trying to perceive and judge player and social media has made those judgements and clips more accessible to a wider audience. When we were younger, sure a player may have a rough day or a bad half, but if they scored it was forgotten. In the same way we didn't catalogue every game and moment as evidence of a conclusion. We let them play and tried to make broader conclusions based over many games or a season or what stuck in our memory most. I don't doubt that created unreliable recollections in some cases, but I also wonder how much it helped maintain players' sense of expression. They were just allowed to feel out the game a bit and weren't forced into the few choices that had been coached into them. Like I say, this is not the only reason, but I was something I was debating, but didn't feel worth of a thread.

I'm fairly sure this is one of the issues Man City are in bother for with Roberto Mancini. It seems fairly straightforward on paper. You offer Isak a ridiculous amount of money for his image rights in the MENA region and he does a few campaigns to justify it. I sense the bastions of morality that are the other top six clubs would quickly flag that though (apart from Man City perhaps). It's too complicated a situation to ever know what's truly going on. To that end, the transfer window represents respite for us as supporters because up until that point his future remains unclear.

If I can summon any silver lining right now it's that we have a manager who finds ways to work with what he's got in the basket. We absolutely need new faces, but 12 months ago we only had Will Osula to show for the summer window and he still managed to give us our best season in modern times. I hope that point isn't lost on the match-going fans.

That central midfield still looks one-paced to me. I'd be surprised if it can manage the workload of supporting attacks and defensive transitions. I was very surprised when you signed Manuel Ugarte. I'd seen nothing from his time at PSG to suggest he was an elite midfielder, let alone one suited to the rigours of the Premier League. That's interesting about Amad. I know Amorim used wingers as wingbacks at Sporting which explains why he's doing it again here. I've always been fond of Dalot, but at 26, he's probably not getting much better. I would hope this season sees an uptick from Dorgu too. He looked painfully raw last season. I assume the priority is a goalkeeper given Onana is pretty average at his primary job?

I'd imagine Chelsea are also trying to balance their books. Although Wesley Fofana has been there for a bit, his fee+wages mean he'd be a massive financial hit if he was sold. Trevor Chalobah represents pure profit.

You can't spin it for me. Xhaka is a very talented player and even if he's diminished slightly from his Arsenal days he should be the perfect anchor for their midfield. It may take time for the midfield to gel assuming he's playing alongside the two other new arrivals, but it's an astute bit of business (dare I say far better than grabbing Jordan Henderson). I can see them trying to play on the break a lot this season and he'll be ideal for playing those quick transition passes. EDIT: To avoid double posting in quick succession, ironically, I wouldn't take him here. For all his experience he's not likely to be charging around the pitch. It's that old Johan Cryuff principle of Pep Guardiola being one of the best defending midfielders in the world if the space is small. I'm not saying Xhaka is one of the best in the world, but you don't want him trying to cover large areas, and one of the trade offs with our style under Eddie Howe is big open spaces at the back.

Which is why I wasn't. My assessment comes from watching them sporadically across the last few seasons, including against ourselves, during which some of them looked more than a yard off it. Some players will always surprise you, but last season was a frank reminder of the talent gap when all three promoted sides were dispatched fairly comfortably by the rest of the league.