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Meh, I’m not bothered missing out on Pedro. £50m seems like far too much of our budget to spend on a backup striker. Assume we were only in for him because Brighton wanted to sell so he might have been much cheaper if no one else was interested.

Declining birth rates are a huge issue, in fact, with climate change probably the biggest issue the west has. Not just the UK, in places like South Korea and Japan it's catastrophic. In the former, they have provided loads of incentives for people to have more kids to no avail. So it's not just financial, but this is undoubtedly important. Without indigenous young people, you need to import people from places like India and Africa to fill the gap. Over time this will undoubtedly change the demographic makeup of the country and cause issues we are witnessing today. So Bridget is probably right (frankly I can't be bothered to read what she says), but what's laughable is her thinking she can change things by just telling people what to do and without MASSIVELY incentivising having children. It's absolutely crippling financially in this country. The cost of childcare, food, clothes, education, holidays. All the while the strain of it sets you back in your job as in my experience having children just isn't recognised as something that needs to be worked around. I also spent a decade so focused on the needs of my kids I kind of just let my career trundle on, not wanting more stress through responsibility. Only now trying to change that. Sorry you feel the way you do about the UK, but most is down to 14 years of the last lot. We'll struggle to fix that now, maybe it's not possible. But on this issue, it's not UK specific. It's affecting the entire "first" world.

Totally agree we can't waste time with offers that aren't going to be accepted but I'm not sure that was the case here. It seems the player always wanted to go to London and it seems to me that we've been used as bait to get Chelsea to make the move.

i understand why the club sets a valuation on each target. if we spunked £60m on pedro then £60m on elanga it blows a massive hole in our budget. i'm sure they're also aware that PL wingers are pricey and that they are unlikely to prize away some of the players we've been linked with for less than the £60m they have ended up going for. chelsea got him because they stumped up the asking price (yes, there are other issues such as wages/attractiveness, already discussed) but if we can't afford the type of PL player howe wants, i hope we don't piss about all summer with lowball offers, like we did with guehi last year, and move on to more affordable/realistic targets.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/bridget-phillipson-britons-children-birth-rates/ Bridget calling for people to have more kids. I guess thats the inevitable flip side of cracking down on immigration. Problem is many young people aren't interested because society is so fucked. If I'd been born even ten years earlier I'm sure I would have had some myself, but its never materialised for me sadly. Money and stability just haven't permitted it even in my longer running relationships. I really do hate this country tbh. Funny how that can happen, I loved it once.

Not saying that this is what you're saying here, but I see a lot on twitter saying we should just pay the extra £5m or £10m as if it's just an extra couple of quid. I know to our owners that sort of money isn't more than change but unfortunately we have to work within the ridiculous constraints of PSR and those are certainly large amounts within the world we working.

It might, just might, suggest we’re targeting attacking players in this window

That was great

I wouldn't worry, from afar Newcastle have clearly been going in the right direction. keep your squad together add a couple and you're golden. if i was a newcastle fan, given what i've witnessed at city, i'd want the owners to sort out all the behind the scenes stuff. a state of the art training centre and academy. make it so when players get there they never want to leave. get all that sorted while you wait to see what happens with the 115 and the apt cases then you'll know the lay of the land on the big spending. maybe build a womens team and a hotel. our training and academy have been the making of us. we make so much money from it.

It's America's royal wedding man, let him have it.

One tenuous link in amongst a plethora of attacking players.

We were linked with an Italian CB last week. Sounds like Guehi might be heading to Liverpool.

It's the £££'s the players go for. They won't buy someone they don't want, the difference between 1st/2nd even 3rd + choice will be wafer thin, we're not buying Billy Askew because prime Messi turned us down. It's interesting that there have been very few rumours around our main position of need (RCB) and all the noise has been around the position social media thinks is our main issue.

Will they? They may not be his first choice, if rumours to be believed, which is a shame for him. He deserves to be backed properly. I don’t know if we keep losing out on rumoured targets to Chelsea and Man U because they offer higher wages, or because they remain more attractive (hard to accept in Man U’s case currently) than we are or because we’re haggling over £5-10m on each fee.

Importantly they'll be the players they want.

I wonder what Chelse are telling the players that they sign. 2 Seasons (games played, from 90+) Caceido €116m - 73 Lavia €62m - 17 Nkunku €60m - 38 Palmer €47m - 70 Disasi €45m - 37 (loaned out) Jackson £37m - 65 Ugochukwu €27M - 12 Sanchez (GK) €23m - 48 Petrovic (GK) €16m - 23 (loaned) Washington €16m - 2 (loaned out) Angelo €15m - 0 (loaned then sold) 1 Season (from 45+ games) Neto €60m - 35 Felix €52m - 12 Dewsbury-Hall €35m - 13 Jorgensen (GK) €24m - 6 Kellyman €22m - 0 Anselmino €16m - 0 (then loaned out) Amagou €15m - 1 Veiga €14m - 7 (then loaned) Wiley €10m - 0 (then loaned) Adarabioyo (Free) - 22 This window (so far): Pedro €60m Delap £35m Estevao €34m Essugo €22m Penders (GK) €20m Sarr €14m Paez €10m Would they even bother trying to pretend to players that they're important to their plans? Or do they just tell them how much they'll be making? Bolded the ones who have had some degree of success there, was feeling very generous with Jackson. That's over €80m spent on GKs alone in a couple of years and they likely don't know who their best keeper is. It gets worse if you go back another year as well. As a fan watching all of that go on it can't be a very rewarding process. I hope we never turn into this soulless conveyor belt of mercenaries.

I mean they might not be Eddie’s first choice targets. Sounds like we’ve already missed out on a few, if rumours are to be believed

Plus they have 7 strikers to help him

He clearly wanted to join Chelsea and putting bias aside they have a better recent history of winning things, will give him bigger wages on a huge contract (7 years I heard), CL football and can offer him the London lifestyle. its hard to compete with that

I feel like Mbuemo was, but as soon as he publicly said he wanted man u and 250k a week we just went "fuck that" and moved on. Given our wage structure I am perfectly happy with that, as much as I rate him.

Hardly watched any this year. Has the line up been any good?

There's every chance that the agents of these targets have been using us as leverage to parlay up their clients' wages. Not to mention the selling clubs squeezing up the transfer price. We don't really know if the likes of Mbuemo and Pedro were serious targets, a lot of it has been amplified through social media with no direct corroboration from the club as far as Ive seen.