Anyone think it may be time for Howe to consider maybe playing with a CAM while we have a load of players out? Move Miggy/Gordon in to the CAM role and the other to the left, then play Trippier and Livarmento down the right hand side, with a double pivot of Bruno and Longstaff behind the CAM until we get a few bodies back?
Oh that is ****ing tremendously bad news. Desperately need Willock back now as he runs that LCM role really well, but yeah we will need Philips so they just need to suck it up. Can't imagine negotiating with Man City is going to get us anywhere - just give them the £7m, make the loan a buy on performance/apps and in the Summer sell Longstaff.
Genuinely we now need to bring someone in, it's impossible to consider having 6 weeks without Joelinton and Willock. I'd move to a 4-1-4-1, Philips holding iwth Bruno moved up alongside Longstaff in the middle. Trying to reinvent Gordon or Almiron as 10's is impossible, particularly the latter. He doesn't have the composure or guile. It's also time to stop with inverted wingers and put Almiron left, Gordon right.
Gordon played as second strike/false 9 for the u21 euro win last summer so he has the ability to do it if needed, Miggy has the work rate imo to be a bit of a nuisance in the middle floating around and getting back to help defend but agree he may not have the intelligence to execute the role. I've always coached my teams with a CAM as they can find the pockets of space in between the lines which draws oppositions players out of their lines and also to create overloads with the wingers by coming wide with an overlapping full back to create 3v2's down the line. Also think our strikers are very isolate when we are defending deep in our defensive third and clearing it up the pitch to them as they are generally 1 v 2/3 defenders at the back while the midfield 5 are still on the edge of our own box and struggle to get up close to them before they lose the ball and a dedicated CAM with pace (like Miggy/Gordon) could benefit Isak as he has players to make space for him and play off.
Newcastle are prepared to let Brazil midfielder Bruno Guimaraes, 26, join Barcelona or Real Madrid for less than his £100m release clause this summer. (Football Transfers)
that’s obvious bollocks. Why on earth, when there is a contractual minimum would we go.. ‘yeah let’s discount him just for you Barca…’ **** them
Just because there’s a minimum release clause doesn’t meant to say they can’t offer less and that we would therefore have to decline it
*ignore it there’s no requirement to even respond. Eddie said another interesting thing about PL clubs not wanting to sell to us. I hope he keeps a list of these clubs as, at some point they may want to (as we grow) buy from us too…. At which point we tell them to **** off. Lots of clubs have uncertain futures of ups and downs (including financial) but ours has a only ever going to be an upward trajectory.
In that article it says we're gonna cash in on Isak and Botman too, so blatantly bollocks. All your players don't jump ship at the first sign of not everything being exactly the way they want.
Yeah they keep pushing the "have to sell" one of our 3 assets in Bruno, Isak or Botman bullshit, just another tactic to get at us because we're abiding by the rules, imho.
It's certainly desperate times. I mean, Howe and Ashworth might be forced to try and buy someone not playing in England. Whatever will we do without being able to bring in the next megastar, like Philips, Hall or Barnes?
I still trust the recruiting and if it helps I never heard of Bruno, Isak or Botman before they ended up at Newcastle.
Surprised you’d never heard of Isak mate. Was class for Sweden in the cups. Zlatan thinks he’s Swedens next big thing (if he isn’t already) Anyway, FFP is a ****er. Can’t stand it. City & Chelsea got so lucky back in the day.
