Polarboy

Barnes has been confirmed. So he'll be on his way out to the US as we speak.

Holt's morals seem a tad selective.

The fume from Chelsea fans about Brighton not rolling over on the Caicedo deal is amusing.

The problem is the sell on clause that Chelsea have with him. They get a sliding scale percentage of any sale.

Here's the dates and kickoffs for any that didn't know them.

They're like kids with their new baseball gloves and hats 😂, but I suppose they are kids compared to me given they're all roughly 15 years younger than me. They're not exactly dripping cool, seem like big geeks really, but that's a damn sight better than the footballers who are all blinged out acting like nobheads 24/7.

That steam is likely coming off the big pile of shite. I'd love for us to sign him, but some armchair detectives have seen that he follows some of our players on insta, he has family who support Newcastle, he has the same agents as Howe, Livramento and Barnes, and NUFCblog had an "exclusive" that they were told by sauces close to recruitment that we were interested. Even if we are interested that would be us and most of the league. I hope I'm incorrect but it seems on the face of it to be very unlikely.

Just read that Maatsen, the young Dutch LB that Chelsea have, had a decent game at LB for Chelsea in their last preseason game. He scored twice, admittedly only against Wrexham, but if Chelsea literally have four players who could potentially play one position, you'd imagine at least one of them will be getting loaned or sold.

I seen that as well, but surely Chelsea and Poch would need to be mad to let such a promising young player leave. Especially under such attractive terms as loan to buy to a rival. I could see Hall perhaps going out on a normal loan given he'll probably be behind Chilwell and Cucurella in the pecking order, but given Chilwell's injury record I'd be very tempted to keep him just in case if I were Chelsea. He'd be an incredible signing though, from what little I've seen of him. His crossing ability is elite for such a young kid. He's played almost the equal amount of games on that left hand side as he has in midfield in his obviously brief career so far. At 18 I don't think it makes much sense to say he definitely plays anywhere. The question is can he play LB at a high level, and from what admittedly little we've seen of him, the answer to that is yes. If he has the versatility to also play further up the wing and centrally all the better. Livramento also has that flexibility. The two of them could be our full backs for more than a decade if we could sign them, with Livramento obviously already looking pretty much done. But again I'd be shocked if Chelsea were willing to let him go. If they did it would likely have to be for a ridiculous fee. I mean unless I'm missing something with regard to Chelsea still needing to balance the books or whatever, but PIF seem to have already helped them with that. Saying that perhaps the relationship between us and Chelsea could allow for something unpredictable to happen.

A loan to buy would be deal of the summer, but I can't see it. I'll gladly be wrong though.

I think something that hasn't been mentioned on here, or at least I haven't seen it, that I recently read, is that people who are resident in Saudi Arabia don't pay income tax. So just think about how much more money these players are making, and then add the fact that they won't pay a penny in income tax. It's fucking mental.

😂 I probably should have specified the current France squad. Sissoko, Guivarc'h etc wouldn't get a sniff these days. Also for all his critics Sissoko was decent whenever he played for France. He had maybe three amazing games a season in him when he played for us, but he was a lot more consistent for France.

Seen a clip of Walcott saying that Livramento reminded him of Bale when he first came through playing as a full back. Whether he's actually that good, or he'll eventually make a move up field into a more attacking role, only time will tell.

Arsenal might have been happy enough after they got Trossard in January. If the rumours are true in regard to both us and Arsenal being very interested in the last year or so, I don't see what would have changed since then and now. Ours and Arsenal's transfer priorities may have changed as opposed to us just going off the player entirely. In any case his ability to play at the highest level in the PL will only become apparent once the season gets underway. I see people saying he'll be another Bailey for Villa, but I don't think we'll be that lucky unfortunately. You don't get into the France squad if you're shite.

We play them first game of the season. It's going to happen, he'll likely score, so we may as well prepare for it 😂

I'm still not convinced Livramento will play LB, and that we won't still need someone to play ahead of Burn down that side. Livramento still makes a lot of sense given his potential, his and Trippier's respective ages, and the need for quality cover all over the pitch.

Ah, well that explains it. As soon as I see news about the 'ammers I switch off completely.

Steinberg hasn't mentioned it on his twitter page as far as I can see, so unless he mentioned it on a podcast, or something behind a paywall, it appears to be made up.

Loans with an obligation to buy could be interesting. You might end up having to pay more for a player in the long run, but being able to push the payments into next season would obviously be desirable from an FFP standpoint.

Reports saying that Darlow will leave the US tour if talks keep progressing with Bournemouth. Hull and Leeds didn't want to pay the 5m we were looking for. If we can get 5m for Darlow who's 32, even if that's not that old for a keeper, it will represent some decent business.