Polarboy

Apparently Shefki Kuqi has been seen in Newcastle airport. 🧐

It would be nice if Elanga is just a smokescreen, but you'd have to be bordering on psychotically optimistic to believe there's any chance of that.

Troy Deeney said it, unless this guy also chimed in.

In regards to who is to blame, it could also be that it's just tough to get the level of player that we're after given our current position in terms of not being in Europe, lacking funds for big wages etc, and as Howe said there's really only a pool of 4 or 5 players for each position you're looking at that can substantially improve the team.

Howe has denied that we put our entire focus on Guehi, and said that we tried to sign several alternatives.

Brighton for example can spend now because they've made several hundred million in player sales in recent years, having paid less than a quarter, or thereabouts, for said players. The new owners have come in and the only good thing you could say about Ashley in terms of PSR was that there wasn't much debt on the books. PIF et al have basically had to start from scratch in terms of academy player development, which of course is crucial for creating profit, the commercial sponsors end of things, and just generally getting into a decent position for trading players. Ashley left a squad partially made up of tat who were on ridiculously long term contracts, therefore almost impossible to get rid of, and who generate next to no profit. The PSR rules are far too stringent, so we'll either have to be very patient and wait for our commercial, academy and player trading to start feeding substantial money into the coffers, or pray that the rules are substainally slackened. I want to be able to throw a sausage up the PSR alley 😉 Of course some of the "top six" will likely fight tooth and nail to prevent anything that might challenge their hegemony.

I see Howe shot down, Hope's was it?, nonsense about him being fixated on Guehi and therefore not allowing Mitchell to sign an alternative once negotiations broke down with Palace. According to Howe we've tried to sign several alternatives.

Looking on the bright side if we're not going to get a centre half we may push all our chips in for an attacking player. The Telegraph did say we'd still active in terms of looking for possible deals.

Mandy and Mehrdad will be feeling pretty smug come Friday if we don't sign anyone. Even if it's only a perception, and the actual reality is more complicated, there will be a perception that they were far more competent when it came to signing players.

It's not a contradiction to say that both players largely rely on instinct, but one is a better player than the other. I wasn't making a direct comparison obviously, which is why I said he was a bit like Kluivert in terms of being an instinctual player.

Miggy is a bit like Kluivert, Patrick not his son at Bournemouth, in that as soon as he has time to think before shooting or passing he's fucked. He can only really do things on instinct, and that way of playing usually results in a player who can go through purple patches, but doesn't have enough base level skill to get anywhere close to those purple patches when not in one. Kluivert of course was a far better player than Almiron even when he wasn't in a purple patch.

To say that I was nervous to see Longstaff step up when I was expecting Barnes is the understatement of the century. Fair play to Longstaff though, it takes guts to put your name forward. Hopefully this result will give the team a bit of confidence going forward, and we can put together good performances for 90 minutes instead of 15 minutes here and there. It was a great bit of match fitness for Tonali, he looked a lot better than I thought he was going to after so long out.

Regardless of Chiesa's supposed class, if indeed he's still capable of his best form after his cruciate injury, with the fee being so low his wage demands are likely ridiculous. Apparently this Simakan guy would cost 42m, at least according to Ed Aarons. Whether that extra 23, 28m would mean we could buy our top right wing target is unknown of course.

One of the Saudi clubs are also supposedly in talks with this Simakan guy in case their first choice doesn't work out. It could be that the journo got his wires crossed given that PIF is involved in both cases. Either that or they're confident of getting their first choice, and we've subsequently put our name forward for Simakan.

Yeah but to leave him cup tied when realistically they should be well able to cope without him against Norwich who are an average Championship side, even if Anderson is away as well, is different than playing him in a random league game. Plus if all available sources are being factual the negotiations have supposedly gotten close to an end point, or certainly closer than they were last week. I don't blame Guehi though, if anything it's a great sign that he's a model professional.