Transfer Window January 2022

Would imagine they are paying Fletcher at least double that. It's usually the case that wages are higher on free transfers.

 

Burn is next level from what we had. No, he's not Botman, but is he better than Clark, Lascelles, Fernandez? Absolutely. He is a bottom half of the Prem defender, but those I mentioned are maybe, maybe, top half of the Championship. So he's a marked improvement.

Villa were happy to loan out Targett because they've just signed Digne, have Ashley Young and that young fullback whose name escapes me. Targett wasn't going to be first choice and wouldn't be happy warming the bench.

Wood doesn't so much improve us as he does fill a hole in the squad. When Wilson is back in a month, Wilson will likely be first choice again. But, as with Targett and Burn, Wood is a big upgrade on the players in that position; Gayle and... well that's it really. No youngsters up to the task right now.

Burnley are rightly delighted to have rec'd £25m, but they've swapped an experienced big, strong, battering ram, for a promising big, strong, battering ram. Their problems run deeper than that. Ironically, getting £25m for Wood apparently made some of their targets too expensive as the selling clubs look to take advantage of it.

We're still in trouble, but we've addressed weaknesses in our squad, added some genuine quality (Trippier & Guimaraes) and are still within 1pt of safety. Hell, IF we were to beat Everton, we'd be within a point of the Toffeemen and likely climb out of the bottom 3.

For what it's worth, it would be objectively hilarious if Newcastle were relegated.

 

If Newcastle went down, it would of course be funny, but you'd have the last laugh. With all the riches now at the club, you will smash the Championship. You'd be having a similar season to Fulham, where you'd be hitting teams for six every other game. There's almost no jeopardy in Newcastle going down because you'll come straight back up. Your fans will love seeing a winning team and that feel good factor will carry into the Premier League. It might even be a blessing.

 

Last two times we were down there was good fun. Winning most weeks, going to some new grounds, smashing some teams around.

If we were to go down, I'd expect an overhaul of the squad. Get rid of Lascelles, Shelvey, Fraser, Almiron, ASM, Joelinton, Gayle, Fernandez, etc. But this time, we've enough money in the bank that we wouldn't be using Sissoko and Wijnaldum money to get Grant Hanley and Daryl Murphy

You're right though, there's no jeopardy. To be honest, unless something drastic changes with the capitalist nature of modern football, the kind of money behind us means that tangible success is pretty much a given, which ironically cheapens it.

 

I would say it would have been difficult to say that Tufan and Kucka were not going to work. In Kucka's case I think he's overplayed. Pollock and Baah were more for the future and didn't cost a lot. Fletcher is a very strange one as he didn't look good enough in The Championship let alone the EPL. Rose was a gamble, no other way of looking at it. It's easy to say in hindsight it was stupid but maybe Rose talked a good game and had he got fit and returned to the player he used to be it would have been excellent signing. Sadly he seems to have pulled the wool over our eyes. Louza, from what I've seen should play more but as you say, the jury is still out.
The lack of good central defenders brought in was criminal though

 

Cheapens it?
I would genuinely stop supporting Watford if they had Newcastle's owners.

 

Tufan came with a reputation for being lazy and overweight. Yes he has played plenty at International level but Fenerbahce also have got rid of him previously on loan because of those issues…was it really hard to say he wouldn’t work?

Kucka was nearing his mid-30s and had just been relegated from a lesser league than the PL. Again, a stupid transfer. And one we can’t get out of.

 

I imagine they would happily swap places with us

 

Plenty of decent players get relegated, doesn't mean they are not good enough and he came with a decent CV. Tufan did come with baggage, round the midriff mostly, but also as a very decent player. It's in the Dennis mould where you take your chances with some players. Tufan failed miserably, Dennis did not.

 

Read a lot of those kind of sentiments from fans of other clubs. Read it from some of our lot as well.

They're still supporting us, and in all likelihood you'd still support Watford. Because Watford FC isn't the owners, it's not the manager, it's not the players, it's the core support. They're the bedrock on which everything else stands. I was here before Hall, endured Ashley, and will probably be here after the Saudis move onto to other things.

The Oil State which owns Newcastle United doesn't care about the community, but they'll pump money into it. They don't care about it's history, but they'll drape their arms around legends. We're a bauble, a useful distraction. I have no interest in defending that vile regime and I'm sickened by the Newcastle fans who're so misguided and partisan they'd criticise journalists for reporting on it. But I'm not going to stop supporting my club, I can't.

 

A standard amount of due-diligence would have meant these 2 players, along with Danny Rose, would not have been taken on.

It’s a failure and not one that can just be put down as a ‘punt’ that didn’t work out.

I think we all can accept that not every transfer works out. Of course some will not pay off. But a clubs job is to make sure they get more right than they get wrong - more so when funds are tight and expected to fight relegation.

This season has been horrendous in terms of recruitment and squad composition.

 

I remember BWO member @RS2 stating that Tufan was overweight from what Fenerbahce fans were reporting a week before he signed. It’s not hard to do the due diligence. We shouldn’t be signing out of shape football haters in the desperate hope that we can rehabilitate them.

 

Would you have signed Dennis?

 

Not sure how you can separate the two in all honesty.

Personally, I would not be able to support my club if owned by a murderous human-rights abusing regime. I suppose most Newcastle fans will twist themselves into knots about justifying supporting their owners, however...

 

Mike Ashley was not a worse owner than the new lot. There was a reason the supporters, when faced with a potential owner other than the Saudis after they were originally turned down, refused to even acknowledge them. It was the megamoney or nothing.

If they came out and admitted as much, that they don’t care what atrocities are committed as long as it delivers trophies, I think the reaction would be softer. But the throwarounds of jealousy accusations and all that is just a convenient smokescreen.

I have family who support Newcastle so I’m fully aware of the history of the club and they are without doubt the club I’ve seen the most other than my own. Sir Bobby would be spinning in his grave. The ‘peoples club’ turned into what they have. Enjoy the plastic success, you’ve all waited so long, who cares how it arrives?

 

Football fans will support their club. Trying to paint Newcastle fans as unique in this is myopic and deluded.

I separate the two quite easily. Same way I can enjoy and value Amazon subscription, but think their working practises are abhorrent. How I can think Spotify abuses creatives, but I still subscribe to the service. How I can be proud to be an Englishman, but think the government and a lot of my countrymen are vile. Life isn't black and white. We all make compromises. People didn't leave the Catholic church en masse, despite their litany of crimes.

I had zero influence on who bought my club. The Premier League, the FA, Mike Ashley, the Government all had way more say in the deal. I don't think oil states should be allowed to own community institutions to Sportswash their regime. But until there are huge changes in the nature of football, anyone with enough money can buy a club. Next season, Kim Jong-Un could stump up enough cash to buy Watford and as long as he's not pirating the broadcast, the PL would let it happen.

 

By continuing to support them you tacitly endorsing the owners, simple as that really.

 

I'd take war criminals over an owner who is stingy with finances any day m8

 

Sorry like but that is ill-informed nonsense. What other party? There were no other accepted bids. We were excited at the prospect of the Orleggi group, but that never manifested beyond rumours and soft-quotes. The group lead by Peter Kenyon got our Stotties warmed up, but it went nowhere. There were plenty of suitors, and we would have been excited by any of them, but Big Mike accepted the sum total of 1 bid; The Saudis.

Making out like we had any kind of say in the deal is tribalism and patently mental.

Ashley wanted the deal. He could have sold us to anyone and we would have celebrated like we'd won the cup for most of them.

 

What a simplistic brain that wobbles about in your head. I've explicitly critised the Saudi regime. If you cannot understand how two separate and distinct thoughts can exist simultaneously in a mind, I don't know what I can do for you?

 

You should read my post again. The reaction to potential other owners. I followed it closely, the fans were not satisfied with any other potential owner but the megamoney one whenever a rumour or a story in the Chronicle emerged. I never suggested the fans had any role in choosing the owners, although I think we can both agree you’d have taken the same route as Ashley did.

But keep kidding yourself that none of you could do anything. Happy to walk out or protest against an owner because he’s a ‘cockney’ but those lovely lads from Saudi - salts of the Geordie earth.

 

Nice, reverting to personal insults.

As fans the only power you have is to vote with your feet.

 

Did you follow it closely enough to give any evidence? What potential other owners had a bid accepted?
No, we can't agree that, because, as I said, we were excited about the Orleggi group, who are definitely not megamoney, or the Kenyon group who again, were not megamoney. The only poll asking us if we were in favour of the Saudi deal didn't even ask if we would prefer a buyout from any other group.

If it was a straight choice and we had any say, I'm sure there'd have been conflict as some teenagers would want to cheat at Football Manager and be immediately the richest club on the planet, where grown ups would rather retain some moral stance. Personally, I would have preferred the Mexicans.

The very fact we protested Ashley (not because he's a Cockney, come on, you're not that daft are you?) and those protests got us nowhere meant that we're entirely aware of our own impotence in this regard. Also, bear in mind what you are asking Newcastle fans to do. Protest against the best long term interests of the club. For all the justified criticism that comes with these owners, Newcastle United's future is now much, much brighter. As is the future of the region. Just look at what Man City owners have done for that area of the city? You think Newcastle fans should cut their nose off to spite their face, so that other fans will, what? praise us?

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the petty tribalism that exists throughout football would mean that the criticism we're getting now, would just have come in a different form. That's what football is. Any credit we got for turning our backs on the club we've supported for decades would disappear as quick as a hiccup.

 

I think we'd be in favour too. I certainly think he could sort out the queues for pre-match refreshments. Bet he wouldn't stand for the NFC ticketing fiasco either.

 

We tried that. It didn't oust the owner. Or even get him to change his ways.

They don't care what the world thinks of how they murdered a journalist. Why, in the world, would you think that what the fans of a parochial English club want, would matter to these new owners?

 

Not much of a Newcastle fan, then, are you?

 

Crikey. Just wandered in to view this thread and found we have a Geordie-lurker turning a blind eye to their atrocity-loving owners and claiming Dan Burn for £13m is good value.

Was Mike Ashley putting them out of business? No. Did he leave them as a PL club? Yes. Did he spend money on players despite continual protestations that he didn’t? Yes.

But still - the Saudi’s are a better choice. And he has the nerve to tell our fans to give their heads a wobble.

 

I've seen far more Newcastle fans celebrating the Saudis than protesting against them.

A sad state of affairs for human rights abuses to be cancelled out by "pashun" over a game.

 

Keep telling yourself that. Newcastle fans couldn’t care two ***** about the ‘regeneration’ of the ‘region’, a laughable notion anyway, as long as you have the bestest players in the world on the pitch and a few bloodstained trophies.

All the small talk, ludicrous comments and excuses are simply something to make you feel better about the obvious, you want success as a club and you don’t care how you get. It could have been Bin Laden, it wouldn’t have mattered. As long as they were the ‘richest owners in world football’. Proven by the strange Arabian cosplay your fans decided to do.

Every club has fans like it. I was just shocked that Newcastle had quite so many.

 

So you would protest to get "credit" not because it's the right thing to do?

 

Yeah I thought that some of the Mike Ashley stuff (not from this Geordie specifically who I found to be fairly thoughtful and considered) was so overhyped and did stem somewhat from entitlement. Newcastle did spend fair chunks of money under Ashley and the manner in which he spent transfer fees (all up front) made the club extremely attractive for prospective buyers due to the FFP headroom he left for them (eg if the Saudis had bought Everton their infinite pool of oil money would have been useless as any use of it would have been in breach of FFP). And yet every time Newcastle fans were reminded that they had stumped up big fees for Joelinton, Saint-Maximin, Callum Wilson and plenty of others, somehow that spending didn’t count or was insufficient or whatever. The club stagnated during Ashley’s ownership, certainly, and, became a toxic environment but he really wasn’t that bad an owner.

I do wonder how one should think about our owners in the context of an increasing restlessness with many owners in English football today. West Ham are doing well but there is a lot of GSBOut stuff, for instance.

 

You've just entirely made up a bunch of stuff there.

I haven't turned a blind eye and have repeatedly called them out.
Ashley tore the life out of the club, no investment in the academy, the training ground, the women's team, the stadium, etc. We've just spent more in one January window than all of the January windows under Ashley. We were relegated twice on his watch despite the years prior to hjis takeover being a regular European team.

The Saudis are vile, and shouldn't own a football club.

The overwhelming majority of football fans who think that they're different and would abandon their boyhood club, are fantasists.

 

No. I wouldn’t have anything to do with Mogi Bayet (if he was involved that is, seems unclear).

 

Joelinton, ASM and Wilson were all signed in the final 2 or 3 years of his tenure. What about the previous decade? Where was his investment in the club? He didn't even pay for the Sports Direct signs he plastered all over the stadium, nor did he pay for renaming the bloody thing.

He cared only about Newcastle United as a vehicle for his tat-store.

 

And we’d be top of the league smashing every team, every week………On North Korea TV at least