OTF

If you had you wouldn't have been wrong.

Given the pace in which we transact it is asking for a lot.

This reminds me of the classic saying: if you can't beat them help them beat you even harder.

There really does appear to be an element of combined effort from Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal in particular to prevent us (and Aston Villa) from further improving our teams. We need a sporting director who will use this as fuel to drive the us vs. them divide as it will take a huge push and some consistency strong results over the next 5 years to bridge the last part. I was going to suggest someone like at Atletico Madrid but he has just joined Arsenal

That was the year Chelsea changed their badge and moved to be closer to the sea the sly cunts.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by the suspicious bloke hanging about, and that has made all the difference.

But I dislike that dirty bastard.

Is that where Mitchell is, having his hot summer?

RB Leipzig are very frequent transactors (like Elliot Page) experts in getting the most out of their players suitors. They've no doubt relished this whole experience. £70m+ is a tidy fee for someone they got for a pittance as a 16 year old.

Soured on the whole affair now. He does look to be a quality player, but if he was to come not sure how well he'd be received having effectively revealed that he prefers Man Utd. At least we've ensured that they pay a handsome transfer fee for him.

Or he'd have refused to extend and we'd know what was coming.

It's almost like the system is set up for us to eventually fail.

On that we can agree as obviously our current approach is not working... multiple windows in a row.

Ahh yes, the different route that every single other club is trying to take. Why didn't we think of that! Mitchell did nothing except bring negative attention to the club. Our scouting network does not appear to be very good at identifying raw talent OR when it is being identified it is being rejected at some level in the club. It's like we're completely averse to taking any sort of risk on an incoming player which is leading us to a smaller pool of players with suitors who are more attractive and better paying than we are. Our appointments from the board, apart from Howe have been almost tragic. Perhaps this too stems from our location? Do we need someone with a true passion to lead us rather than someone with a polished CV?

Everything I saw said that personal terms have been accepted with both clubs, never that both bids had been accepted by Leipzig.

..and rightly so, why should they accept anything less. It doesn't matter to them who he is sold to, just how much they make from it. They're a club who transact frequently and do well out of it.

I'll add to the above that Trafford was the right sort of signing to be aiming for except that Man City's conditions on his 'sale' made it easy and economical for them to bring him back after his success at Burnley, even more so with them knowing that one of their direct competitors wanted him.

Our biggest problem stems from the fact that we're trying to only buy first team players who we wouldn't have dared look at previously. On the surface it's encouraging as we only want to buy the best players who will improve our first team, beyond the surface it's frustrating as fuck. At the end of the day we're only being beaten to players we want by the handful of clubs who have huge international profiles and a relatively recent history of winning multiple major trophies and who have a significantly higher budget than us. For all of these reasons it shouldn't come as a shock to us as most outsiders won't have closely followed our recent trajectory or know a great deal about our history. Newcastle is, in the scale of cities, small and relative to the size of Europe it is also quite remote. Going to a bigger city, higher profile club on higher wages is almost a no-brainer, even considering the many players who fail to progress having made such moves. The next kid to sign will believe they're too good for that to happen to them, especially with all the smoke being blown up their arse by admiring suitors. We have to face up to the fact that because we can't spend freely like Chelsea and Man City did we can't use our financial might to sweeten the deal for these players so we have to shop at the level below; players who don't yet have the top level polish. Some of these still get churned through by the likes of Chelsea as well, so it becomes harder again to improve an already strong squad with so many limitations. The success rate of our transfers in the last 5 years is incredibly high, but not making enough significant signings because we keep missing out on our top options is too risky a game to play across multiple windows. Being linked and missing out on so many players is hurting our reputation and breaking our spirit.

I mean I don't give a fuck if Man Utd are his preference, what I do give a fuck about is the amount of time he apparently strung us along making it look like he was actually interested in signing for us in a limited transfer window. And for that he goes in my shit list.

At this stage we have to hope that Broken Dreams and Failed Approaches can form a good partnership and score plenty of goals so we can once again finish higher up the table than the richer teams 'with no ceiling' who keep buying our targets and upsetting our players.

You 'have to' get permission from the club to talk personal terms with the player, but you don't have to have agreed on the fee with the club at that stage. That way if the players doesn't agree personal terms it ends there and noone is too upset. So the proposal they have provided to Sesko is the personal terms that he would sign, wages, bonuses, sign on fee all that stuff. He can verbally agree to it all but can't sign it until the club separately agree on the fee. The alternative would be a fee is agreed with the club and then personal terms are discussed with the player. In this scenario there must be some indication from the players agent that there would be personal interest otherwise at this stage the player could not ne interested in joining. Then there's the third option where you just tap up the player and use the press to paint whatever picture you like.

Aye totally, that's why I stated what "it says" rather than what has happened. I suspect Leipzig have given both us and Man Utd permission to talk to Sesko whilst the potential transfer fees are still being negotiated. Sesko is reported happy with the personal terms offered from both us and them but it can't progress until Leipzig accept either our offer or Man Utd's. As a club the only reason you would not accept the larger of two offers is if you're trying to encourage a bidding war.... especially if the amount of the offers is leaked and they're within 6% of each other.

It says that Sesko has agreed personal terms with both us and Man Utd and now it's up to Leipzig to accept our offer or Man Utd's.... or to encourage a bidding war.