OTF

I heard they lost interest when an influential Newcastle forum went repeatedly offline.

I reckon there's a fair chance he doesn't play much at City for a while given how raw he is with the ball.

A move on the cards for @wykikitoon?

I was hoping for similar but the truth is we are constrained by PSR to the point where we can't compete financially with the established elite. Success brings attention and that brings the buying power and paying power of the few teams who can afford to buy established world class players. As I said elsewhere even if we bridge the financial gap with a new stadium and boosted corporate revenue we're still at a deficit in terms of the appeal of the city. The only way that I can see at this point of still competing with those elite clubs is to have an incredibly strong and motivated squad, players like Bruno and Joelinton who aren't consistently at the world class elite level in ability, but can make up for it with desire. I should mention Dan Burn here as well. It's far from a given that you will have players like this, or that if you do, they will be good enough to feature. This also needs to be bolstered through a deeper playing roster so that dips in form and injuries can be better absorbed.

Never got the feeling that Isak was central to the cohesion of the team.

No doubt agent initiated to force either a move or a huge pay bump. This might be unpopular, but he is capable of being amongst the absolute best strikers in the world, but he's also capable of looking ineffectual and this can last for a while. That streakiness might leave his game or it might stick around. It also might be due to his propensity for injuries. If he is sold we've seen that at the moment we're not really capable of bringing in his level of developed player. We need to bring them in earlier and hope that Howe can help them develop. It's going to be tough going into the Champion's League with wholly new forward options on the back of little or no time in preseason. This will drag on as well, far from ideal.

I don't consider Willock cover for them at all to be honest. Though he does plenty of running it's mostly attacking runs with little to show for them. Joelinton does make attacking runs also but has much better instincts about where to be defensively. I think it's time for Howe to either reshape Willock to be a more rounded midfielder or look to move him on. You can't be primarily about attack and return 0 goals and 2 assists in 32 matches in a side finishing fifth (42 games if you include cup for 3 goals and 2 assists). To be fair to him he averaged only 33 minutes per game in the league, and 50 minutes in league cup games. That also tells you that Howe doesn't trust him to play a full game.

Don't think they're flared, just massively oversized for a rake of a lad. Changes nothing mind.

Miley is noteably bigger. We do need depth with Longstaff gone, I was hoping a replacement would also bring a unique element, and maybe this guy does, I would hope our scouts know a little more than me with my minutes of YouTube scouting.

I wonder how much game time a player like that will get here. I know we have more games but Bruno, Tonali, Joelinton along with Isak are the first names on the team sheet. This lad is only young but doesn't look to have the physically imposing presence and controlled aggression of Joelinton which is the one characteristic we don't get from any of our other midfielders, so one thing I would be hoping for in a new midfield signing.

No brainer for both Frankfurt and Etikite to take the Liverpool offer. Remains to be seen whether there's value for Liverpool but they're one of the handful of clubs in the world that can take that chance at that amount. £79m (up to) + £14m a year. They took a similar scale chance with Nunez which largely failed. A player who we're now being linked with.

Sad but true

Chelsea value Nicolas Jackson at between £80m and £100m Or roughy 0.5 women's teams.

Stephen Merchant looks different with long hair.

He did well in his last comeback. Back in *checks history text books* 2023.

This is a hot new take I can get behind. and quickly eject if we sign him

I've had similar thoughts however watching Yasir Al-Rumayyan lifting the Cup and celebrating with us this year mostly puts pay to that. I just don't think they've had the attitude to push the boundaries as they've consistently seen that even when doing everything by the book they're subject to a much higher level of scrutiny than other clubs. Also, because success happened so quickly at Chelsea and City they are faced with unrealistic expectations from some supporters that we will just do the same. I've really enjoyed the turn around since we were bought by PIF, not just because it has massively changed the trajectory of the club but it has also solidified our support, manager and players in a way that I wasn't exactly expecting; a sort of us versus everyone else mentality through both trying and good circumstances. The success we have achieved in that time is phenomenal and we're learning and improving in many ways as we move forward. We still haven't found the perfect mix in terms of player recruitment, but you have to say we have a fantastic success rate with the players we've brought in.

It's an accurate assessment, but is a bit depressing really as there is no suggested way out. Really boils down to increasing revenue through sponsorship but in some ways even if that gap is bridged we'd still be competing with one hand tied behind our back if location is an issue. Really PIF need to make a move to inject money into the club as profit through whatever means. That has to involve pushing and challe nging the associated party transactions like Man City have done for years. We've been playing nice for too long whilst other teams take advantage. That has to end. Worst case we'd surely fancy our lawyers over those of the PL who have been proven ineffectual multiple times. Drag it on forever again like Man City.

If there is a specific buy back clause it's wholly separate to any sell on clause. That said it does mean that if you did trigger the buy back option for £40m other clubs would have to offer £50m for Burnley to end up with £40m allowing for the rumoured 20% sell on fee to City. Perhaps you're looking to offer £30m straight which from Burnley's perspective alone would need £37.5m from another club allowing for sell on. An offer from us of £30m equates to £24m to them and £6m to City. When you consider that Burnley paid at least £15m and more like £19m for him there's not a huge amount of profit in it for them to lose such a key player. Makes sense as to why they're trying to eek out as much as possible if they do sell him. Switching to city, the wages must be a huge issue for City when wanting to sell anyone as any truly senior players are on huge wages. They either sell youth players or players in the twilight of their careers.

Sky sports: Howe is looking to strengthen after seeing Callum Wilson reject a new contract offer and reluctantly selling Lloyd Kelly to Juventus and Sean Longstaff to Leeds in a bid to manage financial fair play regulations. Got to love the slant they put on these. We may have acted reluctant in the sale of Kelly but that was great business for us. The offer for Wilson was effectively pay to play and if he had signed it we'd still be every bit as interested in signing another striker anyway. It was offered more as a courtesy.

I can tell you that Dan Burn's shirt is not actually that big. I have one of these thrown to the kids by the man himself and it fits me nicely and I'm 6'.

Looks like he's mourning the loss of his career.