IF Insigne were to sign it’s not even going be a debate of who starts and who’s going to be the great bench option between him and Son, they’re both starting and Lucas drops to the bench with Gil to provide the competition. Tough to include Bergwijn as another option as all signs currently lead to a likely January exit, just like Dele and Ndombele and hopefully Doherty and Winks too, I’d love to add Lo Celso to that as well but he’ll probably be injured throughout the window.
When you look at the teams of both those games, neither of them highlight it was understudies who were at fault, though Pacos: Gollini; Carter Vickers, Romero, Davies; Doherty, Lo Celso, Winks, Sessegnon; John, Gil; Scarlett Mura: Gollini; Tanganga, Rodon, Sanchez; Doherty, Ndombele, Skipp, Sessegnon; Gil, Alli; Kane The issue with Pacos is we skipped the understudies and went straight to academy players, with John starting as an AM while the bench had nothing but academy players so that if anything went wrong there was no way to fix it - and of course something went wrong, while Nuno quickly realised why we've been trying to offload CCV for at least three years Same goes for Mura, because in that match we had a spine of first choice players and brought several on to try and sway the game in our favour, but our midfield getting overrun too easily which is a feature of Ndombele starting as a CM, which was compounded by Sessegnon getting sent off meaning we had ten men against eleven men and one Portuguese toddler who apparently snuck on the pitch on Take Your Kid To Work Day and nobody noticed
Perhaps a bigger problem is the trend over the past 4 seasons or so to promote players who were previously understudies without any real indication they deserved that promotion. Useful squad players like Winks, Davies, Sissoko, Dier and Lucas suddenly became first team regulars after years on the periphery and it has hurt us in the long run.
Kind of get your point but Dier has pretty much been a first choice throughout his time at us. Pretty much agree with the others though.
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Sanchez has been linked with Napoli, with a £25m fee bandied about...but Calcio Il Pillole Meanwhile, the rumours of various (but unnamed) Bundesliga clubs looking at Dele for January seem to have gone very, very quiet
Could actually be some substance behind that as it looks like Manolas is returning to Greece to rejoin Olympiacos.
Lazio RWB Manuel Lazzari has been linked Bags of pace and, crucially, not Matt Doherty. What's not to like?
Spanish journalist, Gerard Romero, is saying we’re interested in Barca’s Clement Lenglet. Sorry pal but we have Ben Davies-Maldini for our LCB role, we’re good.
Depends on cost and wages. Get him for a snip and I’d be very happy with it. But his form has been patchy IIRC so I wouldn’t want to spend top dollar.
Mattias Svanberg's name has come up again While he isn't the flashiest name, the fact that he can be described as a more creative Hojbjerg does add some much-needed depth to our midfield as playing him alongside Hojbjerg lets PEH sit back in a more defensive role, while playing him alongside Skipp means he can play like Hojbjerg does but with a lot more through balls. So more of a system player than a statement player, but our midfield does need both We've also been linked with Florian Grillitsch, or should I say we're once again being linked with Florian Grillitsch as his name's been popping up at least once a season since the summer of 2019, which would imply that maybe 352 is the plan going forward given he's an out-and-out DM who can also drop back and play as a CB
Coutinho's going to be linked with us until a.) Newcastle sign him b.) His contract with Barca expires and he slinks off to MLS
Mike McGrath is saying Newcastle are leading the race to sign Rodon on loan. McGrath’s barely been wrong of late so one I think could happen.
Surely it makes more sense to loan him to Norwich? Not least to potentially nudge the Geordies closer to the trapdoor...
Rodon is nothing special, I can’t see him making a huge difference to Newcastle. Good experience for him to play regular PL football. After all the hype of their new owners, you’d think Newcastle would be aiming a little higher than some of the players they’ve been linked with?
I think that Newcastle have to be realistic about signings, as they found with their manager. Having the ambition and revenue to attract top names isn't quite enough right now. There's still the looming threat of relegation and quality players won't sign up for that. They have to try and work around their current circumstances.
