Howay

Hope’s late night tweets were miles better when it was one of his absolute bangers about Bruce being an absolute dingbat, these hope dashers (oh dear) aren’t as good.

Yeah, if there’s no chance of big Woodsy then I’m firmly in the bed wetting camp. Until we sign Vlahovic or something then I will flip sides immediately.

That makes sense, I was similar to Tom I always liked him but since he’s been at Liverpool he’s been brutal. I always thought maybe it was just because I can’t stand Liverpool but now you say that it makes more sense.

This video is why I dislike Klopp, look at the beaming smile when the reporter mentions a 7-0 win and then as soon as it’s something he doesn’t like he starts being a prick. The question is obviously a bit of a sound byte shite one but is there any need to be that much of an unrelenting twat?

If this is true, I will hold in my piss a little bit longer as it means at least things would be happening behind the scenes. We need more action, I’m hesitant if this lad was the only striker brought in due to his lack of experience - of course if he is as good as his record over his first 17 games then that would be mint but we’ve seen it before where a lad scores for fun then disappears.

Aye, I’ve heard the release clause is apparently 25m. Honestly though I’d do it, it resigns Burnley to relegation more than likely and gives us an actual presence up top. Not what everyone dreamed for but it gets us to the summer and then he becomes a cover option. I’d take one step back from my sheets if it happened, so maybe some of my piss would hit the floor rather than the sheet.

I’m standing next to my bed ready to piss at midday Thursday. It’ll start with a trickle but by 5pm it’s going to be soaked.

Can we call it Wednesday instead of Friday? To give a couple of days training to any new players? At least my sheets will be sopping by Wednesday if we don’t have anyone else in.

Agreed, my worry is they (from the outside) don’t seem to be showing enough urgency in general. Maybe they’re trying really hard and just getting brick walled at every turn, but my worry is I thought the manager search was a little bit of a farce and took a bit too long, I let them off since they were brand new and a lot was going on. We still don’t have a DoF - if it’s the model they want they’ve had long enough, waiting is fine but you need to show a level of competency which they didn’t really show handling Howe and so far aren’t showing in the transfer market. Regarding the window, I was worried no bids were going in prior to the window, I played it off thinking maybe it’s all behind the scenes but then the Trippier deal took pretty much a week to get done, during that time we put in a bid for one other player (two max if we did ever actually bid for Carlos). Over the weekend I’m now assuming no bids went in/discussions advanced? Again an outside assumption but the lack of movement in public today seems to lean to that. If they have given up on Botman I get it, Lille asked to much or whatever things happen, but where’s the contingency? Have they had discussions with ANY other club? Or have they been laser focused on Botman and are only now going to start looking elsewhere - if so our hand has been even further weakened as now all these clubs we are going into negotiations know we’ve missed out on our top target, have a defence that just had their pants pulled down by Joe Ironside, and have realistically 2 days to get at the very least 1 CB in so we can get them into training ahead of Watford. Maybe I’m being harsh but honestly they’re not moving decisively enough. I don’t know what’s stopping them putting in bids for multiple targets at once and seeing how the bids are received, it may even strengthen our hand (a little bit) if clubs sense we might go elsewhere and clearly have other options as we have bids in. Again, maybe I’m being unrealistic or maybe things are happening that we aren’t seeing but so far all I’m seeing is very slow movement and them focusing on trying to pay what they see as a completely fair price.

My worry is we don’t seem to be even getting to the point where we are discussing player contracts (besides via feeling out their agent as we’ve apparently done with Botman and Carlos). Villa so far have had a better window than us, if we want to stay up that can’t be the case we need to move quicker than this and haggling over fees is slowing us down. We’ve been discussing the Botman fee for over a week at this point, in the meantime Umtiti a possible loan option has signed a new deal meaning that’s likely off the table. If we had more bodies through the door and were at the point of trying to get a “nice to have” target in spending a week on negotiations is fine but we can’t do that yet. Regarding Schick and Vlahovic, agreed they may not come but players like that even if they wanted big money for them aren’t much risk - even if we went down people would be queuing up to get them in the summer.

I take your point though. I think it is a difficult balance we have to strike as we need to set a tone that we won’t be pushed about as that would hurt us in future but we are also in a terrible bargaining position.

When I say over pay I’m not meaning spend €70m on Botman btw, I’m meaning if we are at €40m and they want €45m just pay it or move on. We also seem to be targeting character so I’m less worried about the overpaid mercenary fear. The issue we are butting up against is club fees not player contracts, we aren’t signing the Coutinho/Bale/Hazards. Im just meaning, regardless of where we turn this window we will “overpay” there’s no deals to be had here unless we hit a release clause. Take Digne for example he was around 25m plus a 150k a week contract, we walked away as 150k isn’t what we wanted to pay - which is fine but what now? We can only do that for so long before it’s January 22nd and we have only Trippier in. I’d have walked away from Digne due to his character but lads like Botman, Carlos etc seem to be making the right noises and acting the right way about their motives for coming (in that money is part of it but not all of it).

All spread over the length of their contract though. So the 70m on the two CBs if you overpaid by say 20m across both and they both signed 5 year deals the impact of that overpayment would only be about 4m for the year. Is that worth praying and hoping we survive? We are going to get ripped off anywhere we turn, as you note this isn’t a window people want to sell in so they’re going to ask for high prices. Villa are shelling out nearly £300k a week on Digne and Coutinho, meanwhile we have paid £12m and 100k pw to one player - we shouldn’t be concerned about FFP at all currently. On the wages I don’t think Botman will ask for more now compared to in the summer so that doesn’t really change anything.

As Wykiki mentioned we have spent £12m for FFP purposes. It’s calculated across 3 years so yeah excess spend now would impact our future spendto a degree, as would increased sponsorship money etc, this issue is what’s the point in waiting until the summer? We will be relegated which, if they care about FFP, is miles fucking worse and that hit in our finances lingers around for FFP purposes for 3 years. Any player we buy the cost is amortized over the life of their contract anyway, so if Botman signed a 5 year deal the fee would be spread over that 5 years, so that’s why I said above it effects summer spending to a degree but it wouldn’t hit us for 100% of the impact. As Gemmill was saying there’s a limit, if we are after Botman and value him at €40m but they’re demanding twice that, then I understand that level of feeling ripped off, but if we can get him for €50m tomorrow then they have to be prepared to make that leap imo if it’s a player they want. We are running out of time, Umtiti who was seen as a target in case we couldn’t get Botman looks to have signed a new deal (likely restructuring his contract) so that Avenue is likely closed.

I’m worried our lot are getting a bit too concerned with being ripped off. I understand not wanting to be pushed around but the reality is we are 19th, our squad is awful, we are desperate, we are minted, no one likes selling in this window, and everyone we are negotiating with knows all of this. We are going to have to accept being ripped off to a degree.

I’d be more likely to listen to this pidgeons craic than that Sean bloke.

Nope

Tbf we’re still in for Botman and the Wood link is 100% Luke Edwards making shite up.

We should just start pretend going for all the overpaid, lazy ex superstars throughout Europe so Steeeeeeevie Geeeeee can piss all of Villas budget on them.

It’s the £150k a week pull tbf.

Suppose they would know better. Personally as things stand I’d welcome him, unless some better target/link surfaces as I’m really worried we aren’t discussing CM’s enough. We have absolutely nothing in the centre of the park aside from Joelinton grafting his bollocks off. My worry is if they improve the defence and bring in a striker they might think that’s enough, but IMO it would be still really dicey as we’d have nobody to link the play and still be creating nothing through the middle.

The lack of games could be because of issues over him not signing a contract? He looked good last time they were in the PL and I think he was decent last season in the championship. I’d like to see him come in, but still think we need steel in CM, then we’d have a bit of creativity in Cantwell, Joe as the runner/shuttler/number 8, and then a proper defensive midfielder. The issue is these are a lot of targets to get in time for these matches and we’re already only a week before they start.

I agree tbh, we know these players are fucking shite, we also know the club are trying to bring people in so the fans may as well carry on producing a good atmosphere. The bad atmosphere under Ashley made sense as we were watching turgid football and knew the ownership wasn’t bothered about improving and we had managers who didn’t give a flying fuck.

After yesterday I absolutely want him gone. I always thought he was worth keeping around due to the squad rules but tbh he’s completely fucked me off. He’s a lad from Newcastle, with the club on the verge of potentially having this insane level of improvement, wouldn’t you think he’d be grafting his bollocks off to improve/help the team? Like how Joelinton is despite all of his limitations. I know Joelinton is clearly a better athlete and presence but Longstaff could at least fucking run. To layer on he was happy to fuck off down the tunnel with the rest of the quitters while Trippier stood on the pitch yelling at them to clap the fans, his fellow geordies who sold out the fucking ground to watch him walk about the pitch putting on one of the worst individual performances I’ve seen (might be harsh? But it was honestly embarrassing). Again add on that he has allegedly been demanding £60k a week which is why there’s been no new deal, and pushing for a move to fucking Everton, again despite the project happening at his fucking hometown club! While people will point out he’s a limited player and will likely lose his spot that’s such a fucking losers attitude, if he grafts his fucking bollocks off he could possibly be a squad player, maybe even be around to win a cup with Newcastle - and honestly if he sees it that way I also don’t see him getting into Evertons CM neither so he’d be a squad member there anyway. Another thing I’ve heard is that it’s his dad leaking things to the chronic, so he’s likely the famous mole of Bruce’s shambolic reign - again as much as Bruce is a prick you’re exposing issues about your hometown club publicly. Seeing people like Manquillo, ASM, and Shelvey run off the pitch as fast as they could is bad enough but as noted above this lad has pissed me right off. I’d bring in a CM unregister him and put him in the U-23’s for the remainder of his contract.

If this was the mackems they’d be absolutely buzzing, and probably have some new besties sort of runs against the “everyone hates the mags” narrative doesn’t it? As always the case is most don’t really care about us