Transfer Window January 2022

... right, so there's a huge variance in attitudes depending on what question is asked, who asks the question and so on. Saying Newcastle fans support terrorism because a dozen wore headscarves is wrongheaded.

for what it's worth I think Twitter is a binfire where anonymity allows exaggerated nonsense.

 

The respondents didn't write the question... Jesus wept.

 

Finally, something we can agree on.

Wife went to Uni in Liverpool loved it and swears they're lovely, down to earth, funny people. Every single scouser I've met tells me loudly and often that they're lovely, down-to-earth, funny people and that Liverpool is the best city in the world.

There's being proud of where you're from, and then there's Scouseproud.

 

How convenient. You don’t respect the platform where the views render your argument null and void. Ignore the proof, try to discredit the platform instead. I assume you work in politics?

 

Howay man, Twitter is awful. Not as bad a facebook, I'll grant you, but it remains awful. The clamour for attention means people dial up the rhetoric to theatrical levels.

 

Is this conversation still going round and round?

 

This can't be right? We must have spent more than £9m.

Kalu - reported £3m
Kamara - reported as 4m euros, so £3.4m
Kayembe - reported as £4m
Okoye - reported as £5m
Asprilla - reported as $3.5m, so £2.6m
Samir - no fee reported as came from Udinese, but can see from accounts that transfers between the two clubs are rarely free.

So from reported fees alone, we've spent £18m, plus whatever Samir ends up costing us. There's no way that we've bought those six players for a total of £9m even if some of the reported fees are slightly inflated.

 

I think Leventhal reported much lower fees than that for Kayembe, Kamara and Kalu.

 

This is a line commonly mentioned by Newcastle fans. Didn't you finish 13th in the season before Ashley took over? And 2 years before, you finished even lower in the table.

The truth is, you were hugely reliant on one of the best ever PL strikers, who stayed at your club past when he should have. Without his odd lack of ambition, you wouldn't be anywhere near qualifying for Europe.

 

Ebosele joining Udinese on a free in the summer.

Been really impressed with him at Derby. Would be amazed if he isn't a Watford player at some point.

 

It is irrefutable that Newcastle United played regularly in Europe before we were bought by Ashley (12 out of the previous 14 years), and were not afterwards (1/14). Would we have achieved the same without Shearer? Dunno, Batistuta was Plan B at the time, maybe we would have bought him instead? It's not like Shearer was the only good player we had though. Beardsley, Ferdinand, Ginola, Lee, Speed, Bellamy, Robert, Given etc.

It's also nonsense to say that Shearer had no ambition, he joined us when we were a legitimate title challenger. We were again when Robson took charge, so he wasn't going to leave then either. I do find it odd to see loyalty to your home town club criticised though.

 

Why is the Saudi FC fan still here?

 

It would be wrongheaded to use as evidence something I didn’t use as evidence to prove something I did not claim - yes.

I have never claimed that Newcastle fans support terrorism nor is that even my main issue with the Saudi government (though it probably would have been 20 years ago). I do think many Newcastle fans on Twitter, in the stadium (and not just the dozen fans wearing headscarves but other waving banners or celebrating the takeover en masse etc) gleefully celebrate an ownership that commits human rights abuses against its own citizens and those in Yemen and further afield and that has purchased Newcastle United specifically to distract from those abuses and get them associated with sport and sporting success instead. I find it a bit odd that you are so keen to deny the irrefutable here.

 

It's not odd that Newcastle fans don't celebrate the owners. We didn't before, we don't now.

 

As one former Watford manager famously said, “are you an ostrich?”

 

Why are you denying the undeniable?

Even you, yourself, were crowing yesterday how these guys have spent so much money in 1 window compared to Ashley. Yet, you completely ignored the fact that not many clubs spend big in January - why should you or Ashley have been different?

It’s like a mate robbing a bank for millions and then buying you a designer watch. Of course you love the watch - but your sticking your fingers in your ears when people tell you in simple terms where the money came from.

This boils down to a simple point - Newcastle and the vast majority of their fans have shown they would rather the Saudi ownership than that of Ashley. Ashley wasn’t running you out of business - so just think about that? It isn’t more nuanced than that, despite your attempts to try and add caveats to the process.

 

Yet you're the ones boiling it down to a binary state.

No, the majority of the Newcastle fans didn't want Ashley at the club. Had we a choice between the blood money from the Saudis, or the Orleggi group e.g. I know there'd be a majority who'd prefer to have been bought by the Mexicans.
Now that the Saudis own us we can be happy with the ambition shown, transfer business, happy with the work going on (like making us a Living Wage employer for the first time), but still think the owners are vile.

To stretch your analogy, it's more like some shady company laundering their ill-gotten gains by gifting you a house. You can still criticise the company, you can still hope they're punished, even if you do like the large kitchen diner with a bespoke island and wine cellar.

There are very few things in life without nuance.

 

Why are you still arguing on a Watford forum about your pathetic blood stained murder club? It’s been over a week. Do you have little rows going on across the forum universe?

Get a life, it’s only a game!