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"Ah mightn't be Claire Voyant but I can see me and you doing the dance ootside if you taahk ower iz again, son. There's been bigger fish than you tried it and lived to regret it, believe you me."

If Howe cuts across the whole thing and speaks to the fans directly for unity and forgiveness, I reckon he can sell that. He has the credibility in the bank.

"We're still looking to replace Callum Wilson. That's the big area that we're working on." Also saying that the players would all welcome Isak back into the squad/team. He's clearly staying and will be reintegrated. Or at least that's the plan. The club has played a blinder tbf, particularly Howe. Just need to sort the Wilson replacement and we've had a good window and rebuffed Liverpool's attempts to fuck us.

You can usually tell the measure of a man by the loyalty he has to those in his life - and especially at the age of 25, as a younger man, Isak should have a mentor/mentee relationship with Howe. I wouldn't have dreamed of conducting myself in the way that has gone on here with my mentor from back then, even if I'd wanted to move on for more money or whatever. Pathetic really. Should be ashamed of himself.

I’m going to be brave and controversial. I think Howe would get a really good tune out of Jackson and I think he would probably be the best choice of the ones obviously available. Would it have been my first, second or third choice? No, but pickings are slim and we are getting to late knockings.

The most impressive thing about UNESCO World Heritage site of Bath is a tree CT’s world tour in pictures. “Went to Easter Island… statues a bit meh, most of them were buried. Lovely harbour though.” “Machu Picchu was crap, why’d they put it on top of a mountain? Funny sheeps though, lol!” “Grand Canyon- there’s nothing grand about a big hole. They put bikes on the front of the buses though! “ “Mecca- stayed for three days and couldn’t find a single bingo-hall anywhere! Local food was lush though. “

Au contraire. Pussies are for servicing.

@Meenzer Bookshop was indeed lovely. Also had a copy of my new autobiography

Aye. I really hope personally that the fans don't get on Isak's back even on Monday. No good will come of it. From personal experience, every time I have had negative emotional feelings and expressed these in my working life, I have come to regret it. No good can come of it in the medium to long term. Isak is proving this right now. He is still our player. We may well still need him. Please don't abuse him. After he leaves, then that's the time for abuse, as it should be.

I wouldn’t pay any attention to Carragher on a subject where he didn’t have a vested interest, let alone this.

Whole family packed into the car just waiting for the first reply to drop. Speeding out the drive like Nigel Mansell after a successful pit stop

Claire Voyant

I find it harder to imagine that he stays til January or next summer, and just never plays again.

From the press conference this morning.

Having watched that interview, I feel really sorry for Howe that he's being put through this clusterfuck and has to come out and be the face of the club in it. Professional as ever but he looked somewhere between disappointed and pissed off to me. If we did know that he wanted away so early on in the window, as Howe seems to have indicated, then presumably our position throughout has been around trying to keep it internal while we sort everything out before taking action. What Isak has done since then is fucked up the entire thing by exposing the situation to everyone externally, meaning we're now facing heightened transfer fees left and right, and possibly preventing us from signing players who might otherwise have come. He actually deserves to fail for this IMO. He deserves to be 'stuck here for another season against his will' because his fucking stupidity has derailed the entire process for replacing him and made a clown show out of it.

Sorloth being linked presumably because some journalist is reading this thread.

Jackson Watkins Strand Larson Ramos Sorloth Wissa would all be upgrades on Wilson who looked shot in his last 6months here. No of them is fit to replace Isak though, and I suspect that, unless some random name crops up next week, we hold on to him for at least 6/12 months while we source a long term replacement. Like shite would I be offering a new contract at this point. He's still £150m next Summer if anyone wants him.

Not as good as the gravy loving former manager of Sunderland did with his players tbf.

Viral video of his lass dancing in a towel to follow?

CT asking where he should take his family on holiday one day, and arriving there the next. Proper Clark Griswald feel to proceedings.

My new favourite scenario is for Isak to stay, making himself available for the sake of it but scoring 30+ goals and only to even increase his value.

Joke only works if the dup ain't deleted !!!

Should do, but now he's a made-man and under the protection of the cartel's decision-making arm, redrefsRus... radge, anag. de rag...

Villa are in the same boat as us. I’d rather they get the money than the cartel clubs. Also we just paid them 40m for Ramsey, which was pure profit, so in their case we’re already in for a penny and may as well go in for a pound. And also, accepting Chelsea’s third-choice striker after they beat us to both of the players they now consider first and second choice is terrible optics. Nothing could say more clearly “we accept our place in the established order” than feeding off Chelsea’s scraps and then muttering amongst ourselves about how Howe might improve Jackson, be that true or otherwise. When we buy Wissa or Watkins we are taking. When we buy Jackson we are accepting. That’s an enormous difference.

I get what you're saying, but they'll get the money for Jackson one way or another. If Eddie can get a tune out of him then he could end up being a decent signing.

It seems unlikely to me that you pay the full remain value of someone’s contract when, by leaving, they aren’t fulfilling their contract. We’d have heard about this before more generally too as it would have such huge financial implications, especially in the era of PSR, but even before then.

Based on Collymore's intepretation of the finances involved in transfers (I'm still struggling to believe this is true) then that might not even represent a huge loss. His book value drops by another £10m, Sociedad's sell on drops by about £5m and we owe him about £15m less on the contract that we would have had to pay up anyway if we sold him now. So next summer, if we sold him for £120m, it would be about as valuable to us as £150m now - but with the bonus of him playing for another season. If he goes for £100m then that season costs us £20m. I am very very open to being challenged on fantasy maths here (I still cannot believe I am interpreting this correctly but it at least seems to be valid based on Collymore).

i haven't seen much of sorloth but his goal record in recent seasons looks good, a goal every other game. he's also a unit at 6ft 4 and unlike wissa he is actually 29

Did you fucking read it? Whinging about Liverpool's lack of fire power (I think currently their defence is a bigger issue). Then this! He justifies this partly by saying Isak wouldn't be taking the penalties at Anfield. Same on you young Dazzler, shame

CT, you’re less than an hour from Stonehenge. Tick it off your list, be inspired by the Druidic nonsense, then when you get home make one for the garden out of old sofas and pallets. Your lass will love it! Edit; you don’t even need to stop the Griswold Mobile, just fly past on the A303 and snap some out-of-focus pics on your Nokia

You missed the pint of wine off.

Matt Targett to Middlesbrough on loan for a year by the looks of things.

Of the two, Ryder gets told to shut up a lot more bluntly than Taylor. Free Ryder!

We got gazumped because rather than have a DoF of worth, we had the least useful Mitchell brother. I've said elsewhere, but Ekitike was available last summer for c£15m and Trafford was around £20m. So instead of spending £20m on Vlachodimos-and-Pliers, we could have got Trafford. Instead of selling Anderson for £35m to Forest we could have sold Gordon to Liverpool for c£75m and replace him with Hugo. Annnnnnd we could have signed Isak up to a long term deal when it became likely that we would finish in the CL. Then, rather than going into this season trying to find two strikers from a position of desperation, we need a Wilson repalcement but could possibly make do without. If Isak STILL wanted to move he's got 5-6yrs on his deal so we can justifiably fuck off any offers under £150m without fear of him throwing a big old strop. If someone comes in for him with that kind of money we can be looking at Sesko, Gyokeres, Pedro, Delap et al, being able to offer them big wages, game time, CL football and the promise that if they play well and the bid is sufficient they too can move onto a 'bigger' club like Gordon did and Isak is. We got gazumped because the DoF didn't direct us well.

Looks like a church to me mate, you'll get a sip of wine and a circle of rice paper if you're lucky.

Osula had a canny tournament for Denmark in the U21's. The difference between U21 and senior football is massive, a lot of the players you're playing against aren't regular starters (in top leagues at least). Obviously there are some but I don't think you can ever take those tournaments as a signal that a player is necessarily ready for top flight first team football.

How toonraider2 Fuck Off.

If he stays he’ll be back and doing the business for us by October. As I see it there’s a few scenarios: 1. Liverpool stump up the cash and he fucks off. We get our pants pulled down for Wissa or Larsen or whoever and struggle for 6-12 months. Hopefully we get the scouts finding the right prospects for a quality replacement in January or Summer 26. 2. They don’t and he stays. He can then sulk for as long as he likes. The longer he does the less likely a top club signs him. He loses. NUFC loses. So that won’t last too long. He needs to be playing and scoring to be attractive for a move. The route back needs some honest attrition on both sides. There’s fault both ends. Set a £150m+ release clause on him playing well or scoring 20+ goals this season. He gets the certainty and a motivation to do well. Just glad it’s not me who has to resolve this nonsense. Get enough of this bollocks at work but at least thats with no press involved or social media dickheads stirring the pot.

This is WAY too close for comfort

It wasn’t predictable to anyone but Isak that we’d be looking for a new first choice striker this window, no.

Did he fall down and unsuccessfully claim a free kick?

My boy just absolutely smashed his GCSE’s including getting the 3rd highest maths score in the school (some of you will know that this is from his dad, not me) One of his exams was on the day of my dad’s funeral so school were great and arranged for it to be done separately but he insisted he did the others with his mates and just got on with it. He did 28 exams in 5 weeks whilst I quietly fell to bits and was no use to him whatsoever. I’m so proud of him and have cried since 10am. I now need to get some sleep before nightshift tonight so he has gone to his dad’s and they can roll their eyes at me being pathetic and over-dramatic. I wish my dad was here ❤️