When is a fire sale not a fire sale?

Probably because players who warrant astronomical fees wouldn't want to play for Newcastle at this point. No champions league for likely 2-3 years at a minimum.

 

They would if the money was high enough.

 

I'm not convinced, look back at City's signings over the years. It was a bit of a grind up in terms of calibre of players they attracted, and the ones who do just come solely for the money early doors (e.g. Robinho) aren't the kind of player you need.

 

Oh I agree those aren't the ones you want and you need to build gradually. The point is that the reason they need to build steadily as City did and Newcastle seem to be doing is because they can't afford to throw all the money in straight away to get the elite ones in.

If FFP didn't exist and wasn't an issue, Newcastle could just throw money at the likes of Neymar etc. giving them whatever it would take to get them. Instead they have to start with lower ambitions and improve that way, then get better players later on.

 

I think it's a misconception that we sell several of our first team regulars every season. We didn't last summer for starters. Mowatt was out of contract. The summer before, we sold Jacob Brown and from memory, nobody of note was out of contract, Woodrow even signed a contract extension despite interest elsewhere. The summer before that, Kieffer Moore was sold, however other regulars such as Pinnock and Davies were out of contract.

Aside from that, there's just been the general churn of players who haven't worked out, or who's contracts haven't been renewed. No different to any other club.

This season might be different, with us dropping down a division and having to balance the books, but I wouldn't say we regularly sell 6/7 first teamers.

 

Some might but most want money and to win trophies/ medals.

 

I think we've got to accept it may take 2-3 seasons to turn the ship around. As yet too early to say. I'm not expecting us to struggle, but neither am I expecting us to be in the top six come Christmas.

Striker wise it will depend what Duff makes of Cole, Iseka & Marsh. If he sees something in all three I could see either a loan signing from a big club as a fourth striker, or a spreadsheet signing from L2 maybe. For me we have to be more creative from midfield & out wide than we were last season to create chances & make a lot more of set plays, which seems to be Duff's focus. We really made the most of those under Val's tenure & did nothing last season. That was mainly because we lost Mowatt & Benson, who was vaunted as that type of player seemed to totally drain what confidence he seemed to show in his early performances.

 

Waiting while the end if the window to judge.. a bit to go yet.

 

I never understand why people say this about champions league. It's a myth a lot of the time, yes there are players who want the champions league and will even lose wages for it. But it's just not true for majority of players. How many come from CL clubs in Portugal, France, Germany, Italy? Why has Jesus left one of the best clubs in the world to join Arsenal, who aren't in the CL? Why do players leave clubs in the CL to go China, and at one point, Russia, or the US? Even outside the 'big 6', players still leave champions league clubs to go to clubs like Everton & West ham - Allan, James Rodriguez, Mina. It's just not true these days with the amount of money on offer.

Sven Botman wanted to play for Newcastle instead of one of the most historical clubs in Italy. Trippier left Atletico after winning the league to join. I used to agree with your point bud, but these days it's very rare

 

Money… champions league teams can in general pay more…

 

Yeah, that's kinda my point mate. That's the real reason players are 'desperate' to play in the champions league. But they don't seem to be bothered that much when they get to a money bucks club like City & Newcastle, or China & Russia

 

Yeah that is an example of someone they wanted to keep but didn't, why? Cos they needed to sell because his contract is running down and can't afford to lose him for nowt.

 

Large sell off of some players would have been acceptable.

My worry is that it is when we sell all of what should be the core of the side to build around to get back out of L1.

For me that core were Helik, Morris, Woodrow.

So does selling 2 mean we can keep hold of Helik?
If not then we have to hope that the defenders brought in are defo up to it.

Our strike force have so few goals between them it's very worrying unless we are bringing in a proven goal scorer.

Midfield again as it stands we don't have a core player as such since Mowatts departure. We have Wolfe who should have a great career ahead of him but we need that leader alongside him in the middle.

So Mr Parekh, central midfield and goalscorer urgently required otherwise that target you described will be getting some daggers from the Oakwell faithful.

 

when we were relegated under Wilson there was a sell off. When we were challenging under Heckingbottom there was another albeit quite slowly. Another one here will make it 3 times in 8 seasons. There can be no progress while we do that as we have demonstrated.

I have nothing against an occasional player sale but If you look at the Oakwell Legends / Hall of fame stuff the amount of players in the last decade is staggering. We need stability. We need to not have to replace 4/5 first teamers every year particularly given our inconsistent results in terms of reselling players.