Kitman

You make a lot of good points and I don't know what the answer is. There must be a way to fix it though.

I hope the club learns some lessons from this. If we are going to be prevented at every turn from signing elite players - whether or not it's a grand conspiracy - we have to be better, smarter, quicker than the Sky 6. That might mean going back to the Stavely way of doing things - only target promising players, no pissing around with lowballing, absolute confidentiality.

Yeah it's pretty obvious

The newsnows chatter suggests Man Utd have now lodged a firm bid. I assume he will go there for the bigger wages and agents fees

If by good you mean they've signed a load of unknown players plus an ageing Xhaka, then I agree. Tbf they might turn out to be canny signings in hindsight

That cunt is absolutely to blame. He was either completely incompetent or he fully intended Isak to leave so he could reshape the squad with his players. Either way it's his fault, if we'd sorted out a new contract, Liverpool wouldnt have been able to turn Isak's head. It's no surprise Mitchell fucked off early when he realised he'd created a massive car crash and no-one was going to support him over Howe.

You ain't nothing but a hound dog

too busy rage posting to notice! Is it spelt quizling?

I hope you're right Andrew. If Izak decides to go on strike then we have to stand firm and stare him down. In fact we should have told him that already and counter offered so he has more to lose

Also we should offer Izak a new contract with better pay and a buy out clause and leak the details to the press

I think this has all been carefully choreographed by LFC. They've tapped him up and agreed personal terms long ago. They're prepared to pay 120 mill but not 150. So they wait until late in the window after having advised Izak to go on strike. Then they put in lowball bid, Izak tells club he will not play for them again and will take the club to court to get contract annulled rather than put on a black and white shirt. After he's gone nuclear LFC come back at end of the window and say okay we'll give you 120 mill final offer. At that point we have the choice between a player on strike or 120 mill. Carefully briefed media up in arms about us being unreasonable bullies etc etc I hope I'm wrong but I feel like we've been outplayed at every turn here. If we have no intention pf selling we should go on front foot - no bid will be accepted, Izak will be reintegrated, LFC will be reported for tapping up. Even if we want to sell we should say 150 mill is the price or no deal.

Great song. They probably would've been bigger if Howard Devoto had had any kind of stage presence. iirc their sales for this song actually nosedived after appearing on Top of the Pops

I put that in just for you

And then get gazumped by chelsea

This, I don't believe for a minute he'll join us. We haven't won a single signing against the Sky 6 and we won't win this one either. Or we'll find out he was never interested in joining us anyway and is staying put for now. We have to do much better than going for obvious targets that the likes of Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea are after. Like we used to do under Staveley. All that happens at the moment is the selling club and/or the player's agent picks up the phone to said club to push up the fee and wages and we are wasting our time from that moment on. We've wasted a lot of time this window on dead ends.

No need to loose your shit Dougie

I think Xhaka is an excellent signing for them. However he's on the old side (33 in September) and had mixed reviews at Arsenal, so let's not pretend he's a worldbeater or one for the future. He still had 3 years left on his Bayer contract but they were happy to flog him for less than they paid to sign him, makes you think. He's the only signing they've made that anyone's heard of btw so I can see why they're excited.

Wasn't this forum created so sensible people didn't have to go on N-O? Certainly I joined here and never looked forward

Oops

I guess it depends on whether he refuses to play or not

Presumably the aim is to destabilise the player to the extent that shortly before the window 'slams shut' he will do anything to force a move. At which point LFC will offer 50m less than we want

He could always hire Duncan Ferguson to provide security

Cant get excited about Ramsdale tbh. Is he even any good?

"Working"

He's obviously been tapped up behind the scenes by Liverpool. It's win/win from their point of view because either he joins them, or we have a player who has mentally left and won't perform heading into the season. For that reason alone I would like the chairman to come out and say that Liverpool and their media cronies have acted like cunts and under no circumstances will we sell Isak to them. I don't know how this is going to play out but we'll probably cave in and give Liverpool what they want. Then we'll end up with a bargain bin striker and half a squad, a pissed off manager and demotivated players heading into the new season. So Liverpool get stronger and we get fucked over, it's fucking disgraceful from club. Whatever happens now this close season has been a disaster. The so-called big 6 have picked off every player we've been interested in and our star striker is on strike. I blame Eales and Mitchell for this mess and I can see why Mitchell legged it, he obviously knew what was brewing with Isak and it sounds like he was responsible.