Crystal Palace wants £50m for their CB. https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/li...50m-transfer-battle-amid-alexander-isak-drama
Some of the Newcastle lot are very unhappy. It’s odd though, since the takeover they’ve got CL football twice and won a cup and spent more than LFC have (excluding this window which isn’t finished yet). Yet you’d think listening to some of them that the prem have banned them from buying any players and they’re facing relegation every week. Real upset about PSR which has its cons no question, but talk of its stopping clubs from competing is a bit wide of the mark. Before PSR the same clubs competed for the top titles, since PSR, Liverpool have competed. Leicester have won a league. Forest competed for the title before dropping away and getting Europe. Newcastle and Villa have finished in CL places. The top clubs will always draw the bigger names and generally compete for the big trophies but the fact United and spurs finished closer to relegation and teams like Brighton Bournemouth have out performed them shows that it’s not just about money - but having top staff behind the scenes and a good manager who can improve players rather than just sign better ones.
Bad leadership 100% but the money makes the difference too. Newcastle were bought before the pif/decion to buy 4 of their own teams and go nuts buying player there. They got cl once and should have stamped the foot down to stuck with howe and the revenues were not really flying up to pay for the next wave of players after the initial build. It's not like botman, tonali, and the likes of isak were not good signings. The trajectory suggests eventually they will catch up. 250mil to 320mil without the cl money. That says they are working on it. Imo within 5 years they will be up with city in fake revenue and will be past spurs within 2. Spurs have worked like dogs under levy to have 615mil. Now, that is another story of rank management of the football side but it does show what a hard sell commercially can do. Newcastle will achieve that with their eyes closed based on Saudi money and then the wages will flow and players will flood in. Isak just wants his money now and for some reason they wont just give him it. If they would even give him a massive bonus for cl qualification or something it'd have kept the door shut. The noses out of joint aboit someone sniffing aboit adds to the impression of small time thinking. Howe should be gone. They should have gone to the worlds best executives and hired them in a parent company to run all their football but really just work on newcastle. They should replace howe with top football coaching structure. They will eventually.
I feel sorry for Howe. He’s done exactly what was expected of him, it’s not his fault that the clubs hierarchy is a bit disjointed. We’ve been there, Utd are currently there, Chelsea are emerging from being there……it’s very cyclical and is always driven by change. They’ve got enough money to figure it out eventually.
Like mark Hughes. He's done all he can. To be honest and I've said it before, the fact he could actually set up a defence when given players was a shock as you could always walk through the middle of his Bournemouth sides. They should use the pic structures to hire the absolute best football executives and pay them there then do the deals accordingly. If they are running Newcastle plus 4 clubs that can only have 3 global says each it shouldn't be too hard. That takes their wages out of Newcastle. Then they appoint the manager while the doping goes on and the stadium gets built. Im they will be up with spurs with revenue within 2 years but this window is a disaster for them. They have cl and now they need to fight Chelsea (I hope for 4th again) to secure it and push on. Hall is decent. Livaramento is decent Botamn is decent when fit Tonali is good when not banned Guimareas is good when not diving about. Isal is obviously alright. They should have paid the guy as promised. Gordon has faded after giving him a big contract. Elanga is alight but not sure he improves them. They still have a good bit of time to get ready for the cl campaign this window
They have not done themselves any favours in how they have managed the Isak situation from start to now. Stavely promised him a pay raise regardless of his contract and investment in top players if the CL happened. She got the sack but her successor, in not honouring that promise, started all of this. Newcastle are trying to put the blame on us for unsettling the player when they did it themselves. It is hard to see an easy way out for Newcastle. Either he swallows his pride and accepts their position or more likely, as top players often do, he tells them he wants to go now. Maybe we should just get the CB situation sorted and let them fight it out among themselves, which I think we are doing
I don't feel sorry for Howe at all. Happy to take the blood money and put his head in the sand with his comments regarding the despicable ownership.
Plus he wont be there after next summer. Tommy T will do **** all with England, leave the job cause he never really wanted it anyway and the FA will go after Howe. He'll take the job as Newcastle aren't going to progress fast enough for him or the owners.
I am presuming isak went back to training as it'd be a big story by now? If we doesn't make it a fuss then this saga is over imo, as I said before it doesn't make thst much sense given he will be 26 soon and is a slight injury worry anyway.
He was pictured going into the training ground but the rest of the team aren't back in training until tomorrow. Looks like he's gone there for talks. Makes no sense turning up a day early.
Some of the quotes coming from Newcastle have been comedy gold: "Isak has to earn the right to train with us" and "this is Newcastle United" (yes, exactly, that's why Isak wants to leave). They're trying to change the narrative from "Isak wants out" to "we're throwing Isak out" presumably to save a little face.
