The Fish

Lads are off to Saudi Arabia over the international break. What odds on one of them doing something wildly inappropriate while they're there?

I got it. So there's no need to be a prick about it.

There's some new builds near mine with what I now see are heat pumps (originally thought they were AC boxes). The things are massive and an eye sore, and it seems like they're not worth the outlay. No way would I get one for this house. I could get a new kitchen for less.

This is the thing. We've no idea what's really going on. Sevilla might be demanding £40m up front and because of various things we justifiably don't want to do that. The player wants to leave, this much is clear, so if they can find a centreback to replace him there may be movement towards the end of the window. Zen yourself mate. Worst case scenario, we don't bring in enough improvements and we go down. We'll piss the Championship with a bespoke team, then come back up and quickly get amongst the top half of the table, and chase trophies thereafter. Some Newcastle fans have been born, went to school, graduated, and are eyeing retirement without seeing us win a meaningful pot, that wait is soon to be over.

Heat Pump vs Gas Boiler: How do They Compare? | Homebuilding Fuck. That.

That's his release clause. That's the only way we can force the deal through without negotiations that drag on. Wise up Wykiki or I'll get HR onto you.

That's his release clause. That's what's being reported for the Ekitike deal, but I've not seen that for the Carlos deal. It makes sense to try and use bonuses to limit our liability, be foolish not to. We can't just toss £40m at Sevilla up front, because we could still go down.

There's no guarantee of that, who's to say that every transfer won't be drawn out and expensive? Wood had a release clause that we could pay and plays in a position that was an immediate concern. Centreback wasn't as vital as centre forward because, for all they're not very good we do at least own some centre backs. Chasing Botman and Carlos wasn't obviously doomed to fail from the off, so I don't mind them spending time trying to get the deals done. But spending over the odds on an average CB will impact; squad spaces, transfer kitty, the price of the next one and so on. And there's no guarantee they'd be better than what we've got.

See if they fancy filling a hole in their finances by selling us Tarkowski.

Right, so it's a balancing act. They can't just wade into the window spaffing tens of millions around willynilly, if they do, they'll be overpaying for everyone forever. They'll also get fucked by FFP. So they have to weigh the cost/benefit of every transfer. Signing Diego Carlos for £80m will not guarantee survival, and it will mean that they'd be expected to pay millions more on Botman, on Zapata, on whomever else they're interested in. Every agent will be expecting phat percentages, every player will expect phat wages. Yes, we will have to pay more, but they shouldn't be idiotic just to pacify a panicky fanbase.

Well I for one can't wait to hear Zapata of tiny feet.

Magnificent.

Just me or have they looped the audio?

Twitter, for a start.

It is funny that the same people saying we need to go down our list to find more realistic targets are now complaining that those players are underwhelming. It's like they're only happy when they're FUCKING MISERABLE!!

Several of the linked players have reportedly agreed terms, so it's got fuck all to do with our league position and is, instead, entirely because the clubs can see we're minted and want to squeeze us for every penny possible.

They're missing 10 players, apparently.

I'm a huge defender of the BBC, but I wonder if a change to the licence fee mechanism would be worthwhile?

I see enough in the performances to think that with a few better players we've enough to survive. Watford, Burnley, Norwich, Everton, Leeds have all looked awful.

Nice. HBA can talk up Newcastle to Botman.

There's a great deal of time and a huge gap between our current commercial revenue stream and where we could be. If we can get commercial deals in place that lift our income for fuck all to West Ham, or Everton levels (which is fair market value imo). Our FFP envelope stretches once more. There's also the prospect of dumping a load of dead wood off our wage budget by selling the likes of Lascelles, Clark, Shelvey, Krafth, Longstaff(s), Gayle, etc.

I agree, but again, I think that's because of the players. Specifically Lascelles and Shelvey. I think replacing them with better (not a huge ask in JL's case) mean those dropped points will be picked up later in the season.

Watford, Norwich as well. I'm not claiming we've been great or owt, just that individual errors have cost us significantly. Even in games where we've been outplayed, things could have been very different had we not suffered from individual mistakes born of poor quality players.

I don't think that's true. I think we've looked better than a good number of teams, we just haven't finished them off.