Howay

Can't say I'll shed any tears for him the bloke was a bit of a cunt in the end. Agree with acrossthepond's sentiments.

Agree with Quiff, it's frustrating as a fan not to have plenty of new players but I think once the money from some of these high fee players starts being spent we'll see a fair bit more movement. I have a hard time thinking that we'll enter the season with what we have and that Rafa will walk. We're in for this Murphy lad and likely others, as supporters it's justifiable that people just want to see him in but I don't have a problem with the club trying to negotiate his fee down a bit so they have more to spend on others. If they botch it all up and we end up with basically what we have going into the last week of the window then I'll start to get mad.

Congrats Troops. Also I'm chuffed to see that horrific time you and your mrs have had has come to an end HMHM, I hope it's a lot better for you both going forward.

He's fucking shite isn't he? I'm not sure why Man City are even arsed about trying to put in a clause like that, I suppose it's just a safety thing in case he suddenly becomes really good. These clauses are going to be a real problem going forward, I know they've been big for a while with sides like Barca, Juve, etc but they seem to be becoming big here now too, it's just another way of the bigger sides having huge amounts of players on their books while giving them all experience. It's shite really as we're just going to see these Morata type of deals more often where they sell the player and once he starts garnering interest they exploit the clause only intending to sell him on for a profit, hopefully more players will do what Delofeu (reportedly) did and knock the deal back but it's not likely.

Thauvin got more goals from the wing than Mounie got up front in a similar amount of games. The French league is just as hit and miss as the Dutch league imo and his record was about 1 in 2.5 games which isn't much off Riviere's 1 in 3 for Monaco before we signed him. I see no reason whatsoever (short of an injury ridden season) that Gayle couldn't match the sort of numbers (or better) Deeney, Rondon, Vokes, and a couple of others got last season. He managed 7 in only 8 starts (15 sub apps) his first season at Palace, 5 in 11 starts (14 sub apps) second season, and 3 in 8 starts (8 sub apps) in his final season (which was under Pards), he's also no doubt improved since then and has a bit more confidence about him rather than being in and out of the team. I'm not opposed to us signing a striker but our focus should be elsewhere as imo striker is one of the harder positions for us to improve on (our starter anyway). We'd also still be lacking in creativity which is the main problem I think, I'd rather we spent big on a player for that number 10 role, a central midfielder, a left winger, a left back, and perhaps another CB. It's a shame the Lewis Holtby rumours seemed to be bollocks as I would have liked a player like that in behind the striker.

Aye it's a weird one, similar could be said for Perez as well imo. I still think Mitro will be shifted as like many have said it's pretty clear Rafa doesn't trust him.

Burnley, Watford, West Brom, and Southampton all survived and their top scorers had 10, 10, 8, and 7 respectively. You don't need a striker that can score 15+ to survive in the league, the market is insane and striker have always been at a premium so I can see us focusing more on other areas and perhaps getting a striker from abroad as someone mentioned. As J69 has said a few times I'd like to see us get someone like Murphy for the left wing, he'd take some of the goal scoring burden off Ritchie. I still think an attacking midfielder is one of our biggest needs as no one was able to fill that role adequately last season.

Isn't Vardy on 100k a week? He seems pretty well settled where he is as well, turned down Arsenal last summer iirc. He also 'only' got 13 last season, if Gayle went injury free (I know) I doubt he'd be far off that sort of tally. My main reservation about having Gayle as the main striker is the amount of games he missed last season, I think given enough chances he'd be fine in the PL.

Some of those are class, Brightons 3rd one and Chelseas 1st ffs. The Arsenal one sums that moaning fan base up.

I wouldn't mind seeing us sign Murphy, I think he's got far more end product about him than that Traore we're linked with. Agree completely about Navas, I never understood how he played so often for Man City as his final product was shocking, he barely got any goals or assists for a side that spent the majority of games on the attack. Agree about Gray as well, I don't see him as being an improvement on Gayle and I'm not sure he'd want to come here and be the back up. Really hope the Ojo thing is rubbish as well, he's had two pretty uneventful loan spells in the Championship and I'd rather us just sign a player outright. If we were going to loan him I'd hope it was a deal similar to Atsu with an agreed fee clause. I agree with KD about Reina and Gibbs too, Delph I'm not fond of but he is an improvement on Colback (anything that pushes him further down the pecking order is a plus). I've never been a big fan of Reina but one of his major pluses is his distribution which could be vital if we're going to set up to counter.

Fair enough, I thought it opened later as most contracts seem to run until end of June. It's not like many teams do much in June really though so I don't see it as anything to worry about.

We also signed two youngsters. If they don't count then the youngster Brighton signed from Celtic shouldn't either. Brighton also signed a replacement for the keeper they lost. So we're both at one in if we're going to ignore Atsu and youngsters. Palace have had none in. As I say it's been one week, I know it's felt like ages because the season ended early but it's still only been one week.

The window has been open a week or so man, we've got two players in and now people are saying we have a bid on a third accepted. Meanwhile teams like Burnley, West Ham, and Palace have basically done fuck all and haven't had many rumors that they will do much either. Stoke, West Brom and a few others haven't done loads either because it's been a week. Huddersfield keep getting brought up as doing more than us but they weren't close to us last season and I can't say I've seen many of the players they've bought play other than Mooy and Ince who I don't rate so I can't say they're worrying me.

Aye you're right like, quotes of over 100m for an 18 year old that's had one good season in France and a decent showing in the CL. Insanity. It's fucked really that's why I hope Ashley has a rethink and stops thinking 14m for a player is splashing out or we'll be fucked.

Prices are out of control since this new tv deal tbf. Lukaku has a good goal record overall but iirc I saw somewhere that it's not great against sides in the top 6.

Aye I didn't really think we would be, massively outlandish fee for us. I'd be surprised if we spent 25m on a player nevermind over 40m.

If we are bidding on the £40-60m range I'd be fucking gutted if we ended up with someone like Bas Dost ffs.

If I heard that sentence from my agent I'd drop him right away. That £500 fine probably put his Agency in the red, shambolic prick.

At least the bit about how he was trying to figure out Newcastles transfers while on the sesh goes someway to helping us all understand the signing of Riviere.

I was hoping the fact City had bought him said something about his quality, but after reading the surprisingly well researched article Meenz posted it seems it says fuck all about his ability. It is good that he supposedly had a good season in La Liga and was defender of the season the prior season in the second division.

The rare times he got on the pitch for us he seemed to have an ok range of passing, would be nice to see him at full match fitness. Seems he played 20 or so games like Andrew mentioned and scored 6 goals so not a terrible season, hopefully he's put this shite run of injuries behind him.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11678/10935589/florian-lejeune-close-to-newcastle-move-from-eibar Can't say I've seen him play before, CB is a big area of need though imo.

Stone cold sober as well.

The Newcastle account on Facebook put up a video of some of the players arriving for the first day of training, all the players manage the task of walking into the training centre without issue until Colback who drops his shoes

He's some boy. Seriously man, it's not the first time something like this has come out about his senior management meetings. Odd culture to have at a company.