Howay

I’d seen £35-40m at the time but it’s undisclosed from the looks of it. Feel free to only focus on one throw away comparison, regardless all of my points still stand, a player of Diaby’s caliber is comfortably worth £50m in the current market if Bailey was £30m and Buendia around £38m. It’s true that we may only spend that due to the owners, but the FFP argument is bollocks by Edwards. The same bloke said we’d spend fuck all in January while we were trying to pay ~£100m for Botman, Ekitike, and Carlos

If we have £50m left to spend to improve our biggest glaring needs from last season when we spent pretty much that on a CB and a GK, two positions we could have easily left this window, then our lot are mental tbh. Since they’ve shown they know the areas needed to improve, and have brought in Howe and the highly rated Ashworth I’ve got far more faith that someone like Luke Edwards is the mental one. Remember Edwards started the window saying £60m, then changed his mind and said £80m after the Botman & Ekitike links, now he’s saying another £50m on top of what we’ve spent. Edwards also claims the club have been shocked at the quoted prices, it’s something else that I simply do not believe. They’re supposedly after Diaby, a 23 year old French international who had 17 goals and 11 assists in the Bundesliga last year - Leon Bailey cost around the quoted price with half those goal involvements. The other target is Paqueta who is a 24 year old Brazilian international with 33 caps in a Brazil side that have a great opportunity to win the World Cup. If you take Luke’s claims as true that they basically spent half the budget on nice to have players rather than immediate needs, and that they’re baffled those two players have asking prices in the £40m-£60m range then we shouldn’t have much faith in Ashworth and the rest as that’s all fucking mental. The more likely case is they’re feeding Edwards and others this in an attempt to strengthen their position in negotiations.

“dowwunt come at iz again ya daft cowuhh, daint come at iz” as her “lad” struggles to rip the lovely shirt, bought from scope, off the back of his rival. I was hoping a stray dog would walk past the shot as the “classy” couples engaged in perhaps the most unathletic display I’ve seen in my life. What a bunch of fucking huckles. It’s also brilliant that not a single person moves to break it up “daint brek them up lal Mick, yiv gorrah laarrn. Callum the staffy owwwah there, massive lads fan by the way, has fifty pee on Sharon and big Mick”.

Aye, Murphy’s finishing is appalling and Almiron is only good for harrying players at this level. Same opinion I have of the ones like Clark in that I don’t blame them for not being the level needed and I’ll remember them as working their balls off to keep us in the PL but it’s time to upgrade.

As I say personally I think Fraser is a bottom half/relegation scrap player at this level, he had one purple patch season where Arsenal were linked and he managed 7 goals and 14 assists but outside of that season the contribution we’ve seen this year is the norm for him. Agree striker is a big need too but because we have Wilson that’s what makes me say RW, Wood had a very poor season - I think his issue is that he is better in a front two, but if he had a right winger like Diaby and a freer ASM he could be better than we’ve seen rather than the alternative of Isak receiving 9 foot high crosses out to touch from Fraser. I think we will see a big spending spree late in the window if we don’t see movement on these players soon. There’s no issue with FFP imo and I think as Gloom says it’s just all a bit of a dance at the moment where we are trying to drive the prices down as much as possible and the clubs are trying to hold firm, it’s just who blinks first.

A big signing for the right wing would be my preference. Imo we have absolutely nothing to offer in that position, I know people on Twitter get upset by this type of opinion but last season we got 5 goals and 4 assists from Fraser, Almiron, and Murphy from nearly 80 starts collectively. I think a right winger also stretches the field, it’ll stop this doubling and triple marking of ASM which will give him far more one v ones.

Aye, it’s why I honestly think the FFP shite Edwards harps on about isn’t true. There’s no way Ashworth paid €40m or whatever it was for a CB, which was one of our lower priority positions (perhaps lowest other than RB) if it meant our budget was blown. Even Pope tbh, we could have done fine with Schar, Burn, Dubravka compared to what we have in attack.

You can hear Callum the staffy shouting out support for his fighters in the mackem street rumble. The cherry on top is it was filmed by a lad on what is no doubt a stolen mountain bike.

I agree, this is kind of what I feel they’re doing with Paqueta in that they’re hoping he’s still around next summer as they have bigger need targets but if another club comes in for him I think we will bid immediately. I think they’re trying to cover as many needs as possible this window but want to avoid spending £50m per player to do it - which while it’s possible they can I think they just want a precedent that they’re hard negotiators, which is something that’s been remarked at by some European journalists already. I agree with you though, this is the window to spend and get as many of these players now, then we have a team that can get into Europe and once there players themselves will be more willing to pressure their reps/clubs to come and join the project and we’d have more power in negotiations. I can honestly see us getting two big attacking signings, I think the Saudis will want a big statement signing. While many of us see Botman as that I think we can all agree attackers make a bigger impact in that regard.

Agreed, it’s the same way clubs say “not for sale” we are using our media contacts to come out with “we can’t pay that” type stories. A quick look at any of Kieran Maguires tweets about our spending/potential spending shows the true situation, and that’s a bloke that has learnt FFP - the chicken pumper should take note from him.

Oh don’t worry he’s already made up an excuse. So now the issue isn’t current FFP constraints it’s that we will not be able to spend more in future if we spend now - of course we could get new sponsorships to help with that which we are doing now so it’s almost as if this is complete fucking bullshit.

Casey is the best in the bizz, not only does he have contacts in nearly every department as well as the boardroom at NUFC but now he has his narks in the local schools. After years of loitering around school playgrounds, being chased away for “being a fucking nonce” it has finally paid off - he won’t name the player mind as he has a code, he just posts what is essentially a useless bit of information even if there was the most remote shred of truth to it.

He wasn’t the hero anyone asked for, but he’s the one we got.

Aye what the fuck is Laurens on about? Too good for us soon? He was too good for us when we signed him, same as Trippier, that’s why we bought them. I think one of the weirder things about this takeover has been some of these journalists almost acting as if it hasn’t happened, they see us sign players who have clearly been told the ambitions and steps of the project to convince them to come and act like the players see it as a stepping stone. A player like Bruno Guimeraes didn’t need a stepping stone club…

He really is becoming one of these ITK accounts, says something vague about likely no signings for a week and then if it passes sounds out the “like I said” tweet. We’re trying to sign £50m players, it’s going to take time he was acting like everyone was taking the week off to pat themselves on the back .

It’s just brilliant tbh, such a fucking absurd opinion presented like he’s being rational about it. He likely also thinks they will get promotion the thick cunt.

Exile is still jealous as fuck.

Agreed, if Paqueta is available we have to go for him. It has the two fold effect of adding a brilliant player and making Bruno even happier. We could improve the front line by getting a free like Belotti, or a loan, and then someone like Cornet for the wing. Up front is obviously lacking but our midfield also generates very little and is poor at keeping the ball. Shelvey, Willock, and Longstaff aren’t the level we will require going forward. We could get Paqueta now and it’s likely Diaby will still be at Leverkusen next summer for a similar price, meanwhile Paqueta may leave this window and if not it’s likely he has a really good World Cup with Brazil getting very far or possibly winning it meaning a big increase in interest in him.

“yiv nevvah seeeyun a maggie coont at the Janelas do mar FTM”

He’s even more wound up after calling in. The bloke seems like a complete fruit loop.

Asensio is a quality player, my only reservation about signing him would be that he’s a 3 time league and CL winner how motivated would he be for us? Not saying he wouldn’t work hard and be brilliant but it’s always a slight question mark when a player that’s won so much so young is making a step down. Saying all that he’s fucking brilliant to watch.

They’ll be waiting a while , Barca don’t have any fucking money - they apparently still owe De Jong €17m in wages. Xavis just going around trying to tap everyone up and then they can’t buy anyone . No doubt we will hear that tedious La Liga president come out whinging about the price of players or something soon.

Back at the training ground for aaaalllll the content of people driving past in nice cars. Hardest working man on YouTube