Dr Gloom

too short

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cm291eml81po

sweet hire

clear-eyed analysis of the brexit effect currently sitting on the bbc's home page. i wonder if anyone even cares outside our remoaner echo camber https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrynjz1glpo

or maybe he's finally been howe'd too? i'm hoping it's the latter because we've got fuck all other options wide right

yeah, I said as much a few posts up. One out, none in isn’t ideal but it’s a lot better then the two or three out and none in that the rumour mill was suggesting yesterday. I still feel sorry for Howe. He’s doing an unbelievable job with a squad that is quite thin in certain areas and is being cut further instead of added to. If Howe gets us top four again in the circumstances it’s an unbelievable achievement. We’re not many injuries away from throwing in the kid Sanusi at RW, as you suggest

jokes aside, i accept the psr situation has stiffed us this window (again). and while i'm disappointed to lose a player without a replacement to provide cover - not even a short term loan - i get it. i do think it undermines howe's efforts, which have been brilliant in the circumstances. that's three consecutive windows now where he's had next to no help with recruitment. it could be a genius move if the squad continues to remain largely free of injuries, we scrape CL and then go big on transfers in the summer. it feels like a punt albeit one that has been forced on us by the financial regs. i hope we don't live to regret it. it might only take a few injuries for it to easily turn into another 'nearly season', losing in the cup final and stumbling to 7th or 8th.

keeping our powder dry for summer 26?

my mate's take on mitchell: another masterclass from sausage fingers. let's get rid of the oxygen thief

it's a fair point. i'm going to enjoy being blown away by his brilliance in the summer. he's had a bit of time to cook up something special.

okay, well if we're only losing miggy it isn't ideal, but it's better than 2-3 going out with none coming in. we'll have to hope murphy avoids injury and that someone like barnes or willock can step up and provide cover at RW when needed.

i mean they're in the tino/hall mould - players with potential in other words- rather than expensive players with loads of experience who stroll straight into the first team. players who howe will want to develop before he starts them regularly but still good enough to come off the bench to see a game out or provide cover for injuries. there are players out there that fit this brief and mitchell has a track record in this area. i presume he was brought into to identify this type of player for less than we paid on tino/hall. even in the summer i expect mitchell to sign a few like this - it won't be a clutch of £40-50m players to slot straight into the first team and i'm not expecting otherwise.

it isn't madness at all if we lose the two to three players rumoured during this window. it would be madness to expect eddie to sustain a champions league push if his squad is 2-3 players weaker than the one he started the campaign with. the hayden comparison is bizarre as we are not shopping in the bargain bin anymore and i'm not advocating signing sub-bar players on long contracts. but if we do lose the players rumoured then mitchell needs to start doing his job - if psr constraints mean more players with potential rather than established and expensive stars that would go straight into the first team, fine. it is a numbers game as much as as it is about signing first team ready players and it would be criminal to deny eddie the sufficient squad depth to keep challenging for champions league spots after such a good start to the campaign. and isn't that what mitchell is supposed to be good at? identifying and recruiting stars of the future on the cheap?

70k is about right I reckon. Might be annoying if it’s still a chew on to get tickets but they’ll want a full ground every week. Be nice if they issued some new season tickets

a 70k new stadium on leazes park would be great. fuck knows what this bubble wrap craic means. i hope they build at least one steep kop end behind a goal in a bid to generate a decent atmosphere.

Insert shady cabal of Tyneside businessmen meme of choice here @Howmanheyman

yeah, I’m not against any of them leaving. I just hope they don’t all leave in January with zero players coming the other way as I think it puts Howe in impossible situation. There will be players injured. Players will need a rest. Sometimes fresh legs are needed off the bench to see a game out, even if there’s a drop off in quality. It’s about bodies as much as it is about adding quality

Eddie has still used all three players this season though. I agree they could all be shifted given their limited minutes but who does Eddie bring on to give others a rest if they’re all sold in this window without being replaced? Seems a very risky to sell all three this month if no one is coming in.

We’re talking about bodies in the door at this stage as the squad is weaker than it was at the start of the season (once Miggy’s exit is confirmed). Maybe there’s a loan or a loan with an option deal to be done so it comes out of next summer’s budget? I don’t know, it’s Mitchell’s problem to fix. A big summer budget sounds great. But it will sound less so if inactivity means we miss out on CL and we’re forced to sell Isak. Do you think Eddie will be happy if his squad is one man weaker then it was at the start of the season?

10 goals and 5 assists from 23 games is decent given he's been rotated with duran

£15m for targett given how little he has featured is great business. more or less what we paid for him, isn't it? plus he's a couple of years older. £12m, the rumoured free for longstaff to everton, seems undervalued for a english player with solid PL and CL experience coming into his prime yers, albeit one with a low technical ceiling. id be looking for £15-20m for him, though i can understand why they would be tempted to sell given it's pure profit. miggy, longstaff and targett are three squad players we probably ought to shift. however, they are three bodies that could prove useful sub/rotation options in the run in if we get injuries. it could all be paper talk but if all three go, surely there's at least one body coming in? we're well covered at left back with hall, tino and potentially burn and kelly capable of filling in there. but RW is looking very weak. and we would only have two reserve options for the three CM places were longstaff to leave.

if eddie guides us to top four with a weaker squad than the one he started the season with, he's even more of a genius than i thought already as he'll have done it without any assistance from our highly-rated DoF

who is demanding that? we are one forward light in an area of the squad which was already light in quality and numbers. if we let miggy go and we don't replace him, has mitchell done a good job? we don't have to sign our first choice future RW for £50m at this stage - i understand there are psr constraints - but isn't mitchell's whole schtick supposed to be unearthing stars of the future on the cheap? if we go into the rest of the season a body down, i think we're gambling on top four, - it might be a gamble that comes off, but it would be a shame if it didn't after the good work done until this point.

a masterpiece. not the sort of thing you go back to for multiple viewings, however. unless you're my mother, who is obsessed with the holocaust.