I am starting to wonder that also. Teams are snapping up players left right and centre. But part of me wonders if we are getting hit with the Saudi tax and the management refuse to be ripped off. I am actually surprised at where we are at. Can’t believe to get Bruno and Botman we wouldn’t have made promises to them that we where going to buy big players to get us up to the top.
I don’t think there is this “tax” - I just think we’re not offering anywhere near what the selling club wants. For example, if a club doesn’t want to sell they are not then going to accept a cheap offer made up of instalments and clauses and bonuses like we did with Maddison.
Yeah it's a small concern that if we don't strengthen the top end then our best players will wonder if it's all up to them to be the main source of points. Not sure what the actual limit of FFP is for us, but we must be miles away from it - from one of the few benefits of the zero ambition of our last owner.
Thing is though, we aren't miles away from it in relation to a workable cashflow management plan (has been pretty well documented) and unless we want to shaft ourselves for the coming windows, we can't just spunk cash all over.
Again that’s fine but why spend weeks on one player to figure that any offer accepted will go against this? Our scouting system must be truly awful.
A Twitter person is claiming that all delays are down to getting the marquee signing done within our budget as well. They think we’ll sign Pedro and The marquee signing of Paquetá
One of our scouts went to Turkey to assess the talent there. But all that came back were pics of palm trees, women in bikinis and pints of lager that only cost €1
As soon as they get wind of us being interested they up the price by 10m. Some of the prices for some of the players are just bonkers. But in situations where we are putting in addons and incentives then yes just pay the bloody fee. It is actually making us look a bit stupid.
They have ways and means to overstep the "limits", mainly based on banking on increased commercial revenues in the next 2 accounting periods, but that isn't guaranteed (PL blockers potentially) and would also harm our ability to capitalise on those increased revenues in the coming windows. I fully agree with them not spending over the odds in this window. We will progress and have come a long way to date. What you may see as 2 weeks (for indication) of pissing around with low ball bids, in most instances has / will have unsettled the player(s) and could make it easier to get then either in Jan or next summer, should we have ultimately failed to get it done by Sept 1st. Nobody else has come in and blown us out of the water for any of these targets we've been chasing, bar Ekitike. I'm frustrated we haven't got more attacking options nailed down - but, I'd be more frustrated had we shafted ourselves by spunking a load on a squad this window and missing out on prime targets next year, were we to get into Europe. ****, people would be losing their minds in here if we weren't able to step up the squad quality in that instance. Pretty sure the scouting systems isn't too bad...
End if the day it's all here say who we are after etc. Getting wound up over what could only be described as fake news is pointless. What happened to all the I'll believe it when it's on the official NUFC socials? If we are in this same position when the window closes then fair enough
Also there's the law of dismissing returns. At what point does risking spending more and more money become worth our while. Its why they are buying younger talent to build a stronger team. What we have will keep us in the Premiership. Will buying two players for 60m each on 150k take us into the champions league? What if it doesn't come off?
I think what Chelsea does in the next week will impact Newcastle. If they buy Fofana, Foxes may not need to sell Maddison; if they don't buy Fofana Foxes may lower Maddison bid. If they buy Aubameyang they may be more willing to loan players like Pulisic, CHO, and Broja. They could also buy Anthony Gordon which could free up those players even more.
Pedro, Paqueta, CHO... that's my prediction. Would like Pulisic over CHO but can't see it somehow. Still have a niggling feeling that Paqueta is doomed to fall through somehow. Comes with the territory I suppose.
So, Forest have agreed a fee of over £44m for Gibbs-White. If it goes through, that brings their spending in this window to over £100m confirmed, plus a further 6 'undisclosed' fees (including the likes of Dennis from Watford for a reported £20m). Plus some free/loan signings. That's 17 new signings + agent fees, increased wages, etc. Having just come up from the Championship. So no way should money be an issue for us under FFP (so long as there really is some cash in the bank).
