S-Clarke

I guess what I mean by ''no way back' and 'shown the door', is that as a fan base...we would need to stop being so passive about them and actually give them some genuine shit. I'm really intrigued to see what we do this week, and the season in front of us. If we're marooned in the Champ come 26/07 then I think as a fan base we can't keep rocking up like it's normal and just 'how it is', that's the sort of attitude which equals mediocrity and mediocrity is dangerous in football, as it's pretty much the route to failure and regression.

Jason Knight is another good option, CM, not a typical 10. But a goal threat.

I don't disagree with that at all, but numbers wise I think we need to lose one or two first (Aribo/Smallbone/Matsuki). Downes, Charles, Matsuki, Smallbone, Aribo, Fernandes in squad size is pretty well loaded, albeit not really a good mix of player. We lack some proper steel in there IMO. If we can dump two and bring in better then we should be doing so, but it's the one area we need to lose some from before we can add.

I'd like us to go all in to get Tom Fellows too, he's the sort of player we need. Azaz, Fellows, that winger from Germany - keep everything else we have, and that will be it. If we lose Smallbone then we'll get a CM too.

I mean, after 3 full seasons the patience is somewhat wearing thin it has to be said. How long do you give them?

Azaz would be a good pickup. I think we'll get two wide players too, as Still keeps referencing a 'few'. I think another 3 signings is what we'll get in the next week, assuming no one else leaves.

I wanted to just go back through and get a real picture, rather than sitting here thinking I'm going OTT over the signing of George Long and actually we're in good hands overall. But we're not.

Signing players isn't as easy as it sounds on FM, 100% - that's why we've appointed analysts, scouts, and highly paid DoF's to use their expertise to navigate the murky world of football transfers. If it was as truly difficult as others make out, no clubs would ever sign players. It's the same as the excuse ''We'll only sign players if they improve us'' - it's weak nonsense. If they can't find better than the poor players already in the squad then they're not very good at their job.

I thought I'd summarise what SR have given us since 2022, it isn't pretty reading. It's quite scary really, more suited to Halloween viewing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Season 1 - Established PL club, albeit hovering at this point. ABK - £12m. An absolute fail. Gavin Bazunu - £14m. An absolute fail Romeo Lavia - 8m - A success, credit them with that. Charly - £10m - A success in my eyes, just poorly executed by management. Sekou Mara - £10m - An absolute fail. Joe Aribo - £6m - Not great, let's be honest. A squad filler signing for the level at that stage, not a quality enhancement. Caleta-Car - £8m - A really poor addition at the wrong time. Fail. Larios - £5m - Why? Pointless. Edozie - £5m - A fail. Orsic - £5m - I mean, wtf. Sulemana - £21m - A total fail. Onuachu - £18m - A total fail Ainsley Maitland Niles - Loan - A total fail. Mateusz Lis - Why? Story of the mangers - Backed Ralph, sacked Ralph, appointed Jones, backed Jones, sacked Jones, appointed Selles, sacked Selles. Story of the DoF - Brought in Shields, he stayed a couple of months and then buggered off to leave us with no one in a DoF role - supposedly Rasmus stepped into the void. Season 2 (After they'd relegated us) Shea Charles - £12m. We needed better than a kid who hadn't played pro football at any level. He's a good kid and a good prospect, but it was the wrong priority at that point. Ross Sewart - £9m - A total failure. Ryan Manning - Free - Decent, squad player at best really at higher levels. Holgate - Loan - wtf? Lumley - Free – pointless squad padding. THB - Loan - Good pick up. Downes - loan - for the level, good pick up. Brooks - loan - for the level, another good pickup. Poorly used though. Fraser - loan - good pickup at the time on a loan to help squad depth. Story of the managers - Backed Martin, who sneaked over the line. Story of the Dof - Hired Wilcox in the summer, he stayed until the spring and did a runner. We then went into PL planning mode without a DoF. Season 3 - Back in the prem THB - £20m obligation - fair enough, that was already agreed. Downes - £17m - I don't think anyone argued that one at the time, but he's not been a success since. Archer - £15m - A failure Ramsdale - £21m - A good addition forced because Bazunu was injured. Fernandes - £15m - A success, credit to them for this one. Brereton-Diaz - £8m - A total fail. Suguwara - £6m - Another total fail Nathan Wood - £3m - A low cost signing. Hard to say if he's a success though, seemed a rather pointless addition at the time. Ronne Edwards - £3m - Too early to say, but I think he has potential. A low cost addition. I don't think we needed both Wood and Edwards though, one would have been fine - two is just squad pointless padding. Ryan Fraser - free - Why? We got what we needed from him the season prior, we didn't need to sign him perm. Adam Lallana - free - fail, pointless signing in the context of what we needed. Charlie Taylor - free - fail, pointless signing again. Maxwell Cornet - loan - i mean.... Gronbaek - loan - another WTF Ugochukwu - loan - he was OK, would be better with better players. Juan - free - what's the point? He's not even here anymore. Matsuki - free? - he may come good, but I don't see it yet. Wellington - free - Not sure yet, didn't cost anything though. Story of the managers - Backed Martin (naively), sacked Martin, appointed Juric, Sacked Juric, appointed Rusk, sacked Rusk. Story of the DoF - Went into the season without a full DoF, we relied on Mark Bitcon and Martin. Spors came in during Feburary of that season. Season 4 - Relegated again. Damion Downs - £6m - No idea yet, another 'prospect' with potential. Quarshie - £3m - No idea yet, another 'prospect' with potential. Mads Rosorlev - £3-5m? - Looks a sensible addition for a change, hopefully works out. George Long - Loan - Pointless squad padding which doesn't improve us at all. Story of the managers - Still appointed, so far not truly backed it has to be said. Story of the DoF - We still have Spors in charge, it'll be interesting to see if he sticks around a full year. ------------------------------------------------------------------- So we've splurged around £200m + during their first 3 full seasons in charge. (being generous to take into account that total fees may not have been paid at this point for some players) Over 40 players signed - including loans, perms and frees. Maybe 5 or 6 good player picks from the above (probably being generous)? There will always be fail rates with transfers - 100% appreciate that, but our record is just catastrophic when you look at it across several windows, you can see the same mistakes being made over and over again, with managers and the DoF's. We've likely made most of that money back, with the big sales of Tino, JWP, Tella, Lavia, Dibling and co - but they've got lucky with that. Had it not been for our academy they'd have been absolutely screwed and our club would be on it's knees financially. We've spent a decent chunk of money for a club of our size, but the people making the picks are consistently making the wrong managerial and player picks. As a fan base we have some hope, maybe somewhat misguided, that this summer will be better as there's supposedly been a change up. It will be interesting to revisit this after August and around Christmas to see where this season sits in terms of decision making. If they've mucked it up again then I'm sorry to say there there is simply no way back for them and they have to be shown the door ASAP. I think they're lucky the fan base has been as passive as it has up to this point imo, because their management of us has been a disgrace.

Newcastle down to 10 men now. Since when did the referee speak to the stadium to confirm the decision? Feels a bit rugby.

I think the 'since January' comments are referring to when Spors came in, believe he came in during Feb.

You called it. It will probably end 0-2 to them.

Now I know what we use to sign players. It all makes sense now.

He had two years left for what it's worth, we triggered the extension up until 2027 a while ago.

I wonder if we have actually played PSR a little bit with this one, and sold him to them for a silly fee? (like we saw with Forest selling their backup GK to Newcastle for £30m). You'd hope so, otherwise it's all rather pointless.

Just to challenge this a little bit, I'd say that he is bad enough to stop us being decent at this level. What people seem to be ignoring is that last time out we had players like Stu, Adams, KWP, Joe Aribo etc who dug us out of holes which he often put us in (and Martin's tactics tbf). Take the 4 high level players for this level out of the side, continue with Bazunu, and throw in a prospect up front and Ryan Fraser as a wing back and it will all look very different come next May.

A couple more - Mat Ryan, Yvon Mvogo available on freebies. Maybe both ambitious choices, but worth a stab if we really want to build a good side. But the scouts paid big bucks at the club are the ones who should be coming up with these solutions, we just know that our options today aren't good enough, but others seem happy to settle for mediocrity which is why we'll probably be in this league next year and for the foreseeable.

There's one thing he's consistent at, and it's ranking amongst the lowest positions in the league he's in.

I think Everton is a good move for him. He could have ended up at a Spurs and been on the bench loads, but he's gone somewhere where the expectation is that he'll be a regular - Everton don't spend 40m+ on players who don't get first team football. Moyes is a savvy operator and gets the best out of young players, and has great success dipping into the Champ for signings too. All of this $$$ is ours as well, no sell ons, no instalments to re-pay - it's 100% profit for us to reinvest. We've now got a week and £40m+ to add attacking options to our team in the Championship, that's a pretty fortunate position to be sat in - we can get a hell of a lot of quality for that at this level.

Sounds like another guy who is ''good for the lads in the dressing room'', ala Stephens. How about we sign some actual decent first team players, who instantly command respect and thus set standards that way, rather than being good at 'bantz'.

We're targeting his son instead, potential.

Which is all well and good, but who the feck is challenging Bazunu exactly?

I'd love to have a terrible record at my job, and then sit back and watch my company bring in people who are worse to my team. It would put my mind at ease. I wouldn't need to worry about improving myself or even look over my shoulder, I can carry on being shit. I'm safe as houses. I've burnt down the office? Twice? Shit. Oh well, back to the new office next week in the same role.

He's a good player, he's not the quickest but he's got a physical presence and he can hold his own. He's good at making runs into the box, primarily a 10 or he can play as an advanced CM at a push - but he'll be the '10', the link guy and the guy delivering goals from midfield. Wouldn't fix the problems out wide, which I assume we're still working on sorting.

He was loaned to St Pauli who triggered the buy clause in the loan, but then a few weeks later Lens triggered the buy back and got him back. A really weird chain of events. The Lens fans aren't happy he's back as he's not rated at all by them, nor was he rated by Still if he loaned him out I guess. This one might not happen though, probably one of those random 2+2=5 transfer rumours.