I think Ramsey could replace Tonali and hopefully the new lads will have us asking Antony who. But Bruno had his best season for us last year and we were largely dogshit. He’d be great to have around/on the pitch while these new players bed in and I think he’ll be a huge miss.
I said after they got knocked out of the WC, he’d be absolutely devastated. Probably his last one. If they’d won it, we wouldn’t have been having these discussions. He’d have been elated; sufficiently, to come back to the adulation he knew would be waiting at Newcastle and drive us on. He’s seen that dream go up in smoke and his agent will be muttering about one last massive payday and being a small fish in a regularly trophy winning team.
I get what you mean about feeling optimism for the new season and I am quite excited about this recruitment approach but if he goes and results aren’t great, it’ll turn nasty, quickly.
Apart from Burn, I can’t really think of one leader on the pitch. Bruno’s into his prime years. The caravan on his back is getting heavier and the quicksand thicker but he’s still priceless to that team.
This completely agrees with my thoughts. Agree on the excitement of a new approach and the risk too. I’m really not sure about the timing of “Bruno’s” statement. Realistically he’ll never be part of a WC winning team now and I think he’ll still be gutted by that. He’s an emotional bloke and I can’t imagine he dusts himself off after losing to Norway and goes “ right then, transfer time” . Just doesnt ring true to me.
I reckon £65 million would be too good to turn down, for the reasons you mentioned (his age, contract expiry date etc.) I don't think there could be a better time to sell him.
And if this is just a ploy to stay but bump up his current wages, then I don't think we should do it. I don't think it is a good idea to have one player on inflated wages; it can't be good for team-building for a start.
Remember the debate around the question, 'Has Eddie taken us as far as he can?'. I always thought that was a false narrative. Perhaps the better question is, 'Has Eddie taken [insert player name here] as far as he can?' There is a difference.
You can make the argument that Gordon will never get any better. He may pick up more medals, but that is to be expected at Barcelona, considering the squad he will be part of. Ditto, Tonali. He was already the finished article when we signed him. Bruno? I think we've alread seen the best of him, and I don't think it was during last season.
Eddie is a fantastic coach who can refine younger players and mould them into top players. Getting rid of the old and replacing with new potential is exactly the strategy we should be persuing, especially bearing in mind our financial constraints.
We were stale last season, boring, predictable. Like you - and maybe many others - I'm feeling excited about next season. Fresh new players, revitalised squad... hell, I'm even starting to like the barcode shirt! Bring it on!
Frankly at this point, I'm so sick of the fucking drama that plays out over transfer windows.
Of agents, IDK, journalists, players and clubs stirring shit up. Undermining, spreading rumours/gossip. Creating tensions and drawing things out in public.
It's so tiring, it's so cynical, distracting and just makes tits and arses out of the game.
On Bruno, my personal view is that no one player, manager, owner is above the club overall. Bruno means a lot to us fans, has been at the centre of the squad for years, his passion, determination and charming personality has made him a presence in the team, with the fans that is what we want in our players.
But Bruno is not the first, nor will be the last player to fit this status. Times change, needs of players, teams evolve. Fans no matter how much they say/do online, put up with it one way or another.
So if he does decide to put in a transfer request, which he has not as of yet as far as we are aware. Then of course we have to consider it, since the club knows he's someone that has reached that point in his career, where his value has reached it's peak, that it will decline year by year from this point.
That it's coming at a juncture where we are changing things up across the squad, in 12 months that has seen Isak, Gordon, Tonali, Trippler move on.
It's a balance of considering our team captain, the one that midfield is built around. That if sold, would require Eddie to change up his tactics, formations and look for a new captain (likely Burn), in a squad getting filled with youngsters.
If he's offered a new contract, the highest one ever given. Then that impacts our ability to get other players, will push other seniors for pay rises and put more pressure on the board to increase our revenue stream.
Not to mention, it puts onus on Bruno to produce the results. Something which the team did not last season.
Which Gordon and Tonali have gotten their way by transferring out and getting pay rise like CEO's of water companies that dump in our rivers and seas.
Questions are always abound at Newcastle, every summer there's fucking drama and Bruno is this summer's main course.
I wonder where Eddie is, in all this movement?.. I know it’s summer and it’s World Cup ‘n all that, but there’s a lot of silence from the..current.. boss.
My hope would be that he's spending some time looking for a new coach to bring in to work with him. Last season it looked like the Howe/Tindall/Jones coaching team may have run its course and run out of ideas. Too many games where things were going badly and they were stood on the touchline looking clueless on how to change it.
The Tonali 'punch in the stomach' has made this Bruno 'slap round the face' a lot easier to take. If he goes he goes, yeah, anything north of £60mill is a decent deal all around. Modern football is about transfers and rumours and money of course, and loyalty and longevity (and love?) are out-dated concepts. Turn up, buy an expensive shit beer and over-priced food, watch some blokes run around who earn in a week what most do in a year, empty your wallet in the club shop and fuck off. Rinse and repeat. We've had our League Cup day in the sun, now NUFC are back as friendly also-rans. Enjoy the match day and the odd win here and there - the future never comes.
There really is never a dull moment. As a club & fanbase we are the world champions at "drama" whether good or bad. If only there was a trophy for that 🙂.
My instinct tells me to let Bruno go for the best price we can get. It does seem like he really doesn't want to be here, but he will compromise and stick it out if no deal can be agreed. If he does stay then the scrutiny on his/team performances will create more dram when poor ones register and motives debated.
As a club and fanbase we have to accept our place in the food chain and be grown up about players needing to move on for whatever reason. Sentimentality has no place in the modern game.
As regards fear of relegation if he goes, well for me i have started every season for the last 40years+ saying my expectation is we don't get relegated. Its happened 3 times and as a club and fanbase we are still here fighting the good fight.
I think Arteta probably has a higher opinion of Bruno as a player than you do Matthew he would be going to be in the team as a starter I think but clearly would lose his big fish status, but would be playing at the level his talent deserves. Alongside Isak in particular he is the main reason why we have gone from mid table or lower to around the top 6 - he runs most games- until his prolonged absence this year put us in the bottom half again. If we do sell him it’s 50/50 that we are in a relegation battle next season and the “project” ,such as it now is, is truly dead and we are now the Brighton of the North. It’s a shame that the club has taken a number of wrong decisions to end up at this point and a potentially great team has been disbanded, when we are dealing with a rigged deck we need to get everything right and from the panicked sale of Anderson onwards we’ve made life even harder for ourselves. I personally think the club should stick to their guns and say No to Arsenal and pay Bruno his worth
Nice one Matthew, you've covered all the bases there.
Obviously I don't know either but if you'll indulge me I'll copy what I put on Bluesky yesterday.
"Bruno has said a thousand times how much he loves the Toon, the fans and the area. His kids are Geordies blah blah blah. Time to front up, even if it's for a year!"
My main gripe with this isn’t the fact he wants away - I don’t blame Bruno for wanting to leave this clown show - but why oh why does it have to be to Arsenhole?
Ideally we get 1 more year without paying him more then he can go wherever he likes. I doubt that scenario will play out though.
I've a feeling you could be right about a new team for Howes successor, this new direction with squad rebuilding is so not him. Far too many ins & outs for him to cope with. A lot more could follow too...I reckon most of our team has a price on their heads right now.
""With one year left on his contract next summer ...""
You mean he's got 2 years remaining on his contract from THIS summer, right now? Yes? Plus the club have an option to extend his current contract by another year, which means, he is actually contracted to us for another 3 years from now. Yes?
""I just didn't see why they would want to spend £60m on a physically limited player approaching his 30s.""
Bruno is 28 years old, Trippier was 31 years old when we signed him, he was a brilliant signing, and I thought he did a great job for us, despite your reservations about old footballers. And Xhaka hasn't done a bad job at the Mackems either, despite him being all of 31 years (shudder, that's OLD), when he signed for them.
But Bruno is apparently physically limited. Although those limitations don't appear to have stopped him being our best player since he signed. And, apparently, he has just had a pretty good world cup, (THIS world cup, not the one 4 years ago when he was 24,) until he missed that penalty. How does he manage it I wonder? Lots of Vit C supplements?
My point is, Arsenal slinging in a valuation of 60 million (they haven't actually bid anything yet), sounds extremely low ball to me, yet you seem to want to bite their hand off for this physically challenged bloke who sounds like he would struggle to run onto a football pitch, never mind be a brilliant player and fantastic leader.
If Bruno wants to leave for more money and a chance to win things then good luck to him, he has been a fantastic leader for us, and deserves a move if that's what he really wants. But 60 million? Fuck off. 80 million minimum, or tell cheapskate Arsenal to bugger off.
Personally, I would insist on 80m, and certainly wouldn't accept 60m. If I gave that impression then it was a mistake. My point was what I thought the club would accept and I think it might be in the 70s.
Certainly Bruno is by far our best and most important player. No question, as I point out in the piece. My main point, I think, is the comparison between what he's worth to us and to them. He struggles to cover the ground, which was why Tonali ended up at 6, rather than Bruno. Is he better than Ødegaard, Rice, Zubamendi? I don't know as I don't watch them play, but I do watch Bruno every week and I see flaws alongside the massive contribution.
For me Trippier's legacy is more mixed, I think. He was outstanding for 12 months certainly, but it's often forgotten that he was actually injured for the great run in 2021 that kept us up. In the last two years I've seen a player who gave the ball away a lot, was often caught out of position, and no longer delivered a good dead ball. And that's leaving to one side his off-field issues that prevented him from being picked for long periods.
But then I'm a misery who always sees the negative elements. I'm sure that makes me unduly harsh in my assessments sometimes. Happy to acknowledge that.
Glad we agree on the 80m valuation. My opinion for why Tonali ended up a 6 instead of Bruno is more to do with Bruno being a much more creative player than Tonali. Remember that half a season when everyone went on about how brilliant Tonali was, but no-one could figure out exactly what he was supposed to be doing? We got one half decent season out of Tonali, then he wanted out. His body language was terrible for most of last season and I'm glad to see the back of him. I'll take Trippier's brilliant one to two seasons over Tonali any day, at least Trippier always looked like he was trying. Apart from that I think you and I are in complete agreement!
Too bad if he does go. This team being assembled looks like one that could use a guy like Bruno. Maturity and grace under fire may be hard to come by with all these young faces.
I think Ramsey could replace Tonali and hopefully the new lads will have us asking Antony who. But Bruno had his best season for us last year and we were largely dogshit. He’d be great to have around/on the pitch while these new players bed in and I think he’ll be a huge miss.
I said after they got knocked out of the WC, he’d be absolutely devastated. Probably his last one. If they’d won it, we wouldn’t have been having these discussions. He’d have been elated; sufficiently, to come back to the adulation he knew would be waiting at Newcastle and drive us on. He’s seen that dream go up in smoke and his agent will be muttering about one last massive payday and being a small fish in a regularly trophy winning team.
I get what you mean about feeling optimism for the new season and I am quite excited about this recruitment approach but if he goes and results aren’t great, it’ll turn nasty, quickly.
Apart from Burn, I can’t really think of one leader on the pitch. Bruno’s into his prime years. The caravan on his back is getting heavier and the quicksand thicker but he’s still priceless to that team.
This completely agrees with my thoughts. Agree on the excitement of a new approach and the risk too. I’m really not sure about the timing of “Bruno’s” statement. Realistically he’ll never be part of a WC winning team now and I think he’ll still be gutted by that. He’s an emotional bloke and I can’t imagine he dusts himself off after losing to Norway and goes “ right then, transfer time” . Just doesnt ring true to me.
Spot-on analysis, Matthew.
I reckon £65 million would be too good to turn down, for the reasons you mentioned (his age, contract expiry date etc.) I don't think there could be a better time to sell him.
And if this is just a ploy to stay but bump up his current wages, then I don't think we should do it. I don't think it is a good idea to have one player on inflated wages; it can't be good for team-building for a start.
Remember the debate around the question, 'Has Eddie taken us as far as he can?'. I always thought that was a false narrative. Perhaps the better question is, 'Has Eddie taken [insert player name here] as far as he can?' There is a difference.
You can make the argument that Gordon will never get any better. He may pick up more medals, but that is to be expected at Barcelona, considering the squad he will be part of. Ditto, Tonali. He was already the finished article when we signed him. Bruno? I think we've alread seen the best of him, and I don't think it was during last season.
Eddie is a fantastic coach who can refine younger players and mould them into top players. Getting rid of the old and replacing with new potential is exactly the strategy we should be persuing, especially bearing in mind our financial constraints.
We were stale last season, boring, predictable. Like you - and maybe many others - I'm feeling excited about next season. Fresh new players, revitalised squad... hell, I'm even starting to like the barcode shirt! Bring it on!
HTL
I was with you until the shirt bit, Mik...
ditto
Frankly at this point, I'm so sick of the fucking drama that plays out over transfer windows.
Of agents, IDK, journalists, players and clubs stirring shit up. Undermining, spreading rumours/gossip. Creating tensions and drawing things out in public.
It's so tiring, it's so cynical, distracting and just makes tits and arses out of the game.
On Bruno, my personal view is that no one player, manager, owner is above the club overall. Bruno means a lot to us fans, has been at the centre of the squad for years, his passion, determination and charming personality has made him a presence in the team, with the fans that is what we want in our players.
But Bruno is not the first, nor will be the last player to fit this status. Times change, needs of players, teams evolve. Fans no matter how much they say/do online, put up with it one way or another.
So if he does decide to put in a transfer request, which he has not as of yet as far as we are aware. Then of course we have to consider it, since the club knows he's someone that has reached that point in his career, where his value has reached it's peak, that it will decline year by year from this point.
That it's coming at a juncture where we are changing things up across the squad, in 12 months that has seen Isak, Gordon, Tonali, Trippler move on.
It's a balance of considering our team captain, the one that midfield is built around. That if sold, would require Eddie to change up his tactics, formations and look for a new captain (likely Burn), in a squad getting filled with youngsters.
If he's offered a new contract, the highest one ever given. Then that impacts our ability to get other players, will push other seniors for pay rises and put more pressure on the board to increase our revenue stream.
Not to mention, it puts onus on Bruno to produce the results. Something which the team did not last season.
Which Gordon and Tonali have gotten their way by transferring out and getting pay rise like CEO's of water companies that dump in our rivers and seas.
Questions are always abound at Newcastle, every summer there's fucking drama and Bruno is this summer's main course.
Well said mate. Bravo!
I wonder where Eddie is, in all this movement?.. I know it’s summer and it’s World Cup ‘n all that, but there’s a lot of silence from the..current.. boss.
Good point, Alan. I thought his comments on Toure were distinctly lukewarm. I think the scale of this rebuild might have taken him by surprise too.
On holiday, I should hope. He certainly looked like he needed one.
I imagine he'll be kept up to date, and consulted regularly along the lines of, 'what about this lad, Eddie. Could you work with him?'
Fair points. One of the ‘something’s gotta change’ options for sure!
My hope would be that he's spending some time looking for a new coach to bring in to work with him. Last season it looked like the Howe/Tindall/Jones coaching team may have run its course and run out of ideas. Too many games where things were going badly and they were stood on the touchline looking clueless on how to change it.
The Tonali 'punch in the stomach' has made this Bruno 'slap round the face' a lot easier to take. If he goes he goes, yeah, anything north of £60mill is a decent deal all around. Modern football is about transfers and rumours and money of course, and loyalty and longevity (and love?) are out-dated concepts. Turn up, buy an expensive shit beer and over-priced food, watch some blokes run around who earn in a week what most do in a year, empty your wallet in the club shop and fuck off. Rinse and repeat. We've had our League Cup day in the sun, now NUFC are back as friendly also-rans. Enjoy the match day and the odd win here and there - the future never comes.
"The future never comes". Very good! I'll adopt that
There really is never a dull moment. As a club & fanbase we are the world champions at "drama" whether good or bad. If only there was a trophy for that 🙂.
My instinct tells me to let Bruno go for the best price we can get. It does seem like he really doesn't want to be here, but he will compromise and stick it out if no deal can be agreed. If he does stay then the scrutiny on his/team performances will create more dram when poor ones register and motives debated.
As a club and fanbase we have to accept our place in the food chain and be grown up about players needing to move on for whatever reason. Sentimentality has no place in the modern game.
As regards fear of relegation if he goes, well for me i have started every season for the last 40years+ saying my expectation is we don't get relegated. Its happened 3 times and as a club and fanbase we are still here fighting the good fight.
So true. Such was my fatalism in my teens that "we're down" became my family catchphrase. 35 years later, here we are...
I think Arteta probably has a higher opinion of Bruno as a player than you do Matthew he would be going to be in the team as a starter I think but clearly would lose his big fish status, but would be playing at the level his talent deserves. Alongside Isak in particular he is the main reason why we have gone from mid table or lower to around the top 6 - he runs most games- until his prolonged absence this year put us in the bottom half again. If we do sell him it’s 50/50 that we are in a relegation battle next season and the “project” ,such as it now is, is truly dead and we are now the Brighton of the North. It’s a shame that the club has taken a number of wrong decisions to end up at this point and a potentially great team has been disbanded, when we are dealing with a rigged deck we need to get everything right and from the panicked sale of Anderson onwards we’ve made life even harder for ourselves. I personally think the club should stick to their guns and say No to Arsenal and pay Bruno his worth
Nice one Matthew, you've covered all the bases there.
Obviously I don't know either but if you'll indulge me I'll copy what I put on Bluesky yesterday.
"Bruno has said a thousand times how much he loves the Toon, the fans and the area. His kids are Geordies blah blah blah. Time to front up, even if it's for a year!"
All hogwash trotted out by players of clubs all over the country and sections of support are still taken in by it
Sell him. Give Miley the shirt and watch him prosper.
My main gripe with this isn’t the fact he wants away - I don’t blame Bruno for wanting to leave this clown show - but why oh why does it have to be to Arsenhole?
Ideally we get 1 more year without paying him more then he can go wherever he likes. I doubt that scenario will play out though.
I've a feeling you could be right about a new team for Howes successor, this new direction with squad rebuilding is so not him. Far too many ins & outs for him to cope with. A lot more could follow too...I reckon most of our team has a price on their heads right now.
Viva la revolution 🏁
""With one year left on his contract next summer ...""
You mean he's got 2 years remaining on his contract from THIS summer, right now? Yes? Plus the club have an option to extend his current contract by another year, which means, he is actually contracted to us for another 3 years from now. Yes?
""I just didn't see why they would want to spend £60m on a physically limited player approaching his 30s.""
Bruno is 28 years old, Trippier was 31 years old when we signed him, he was a brilliant signing, and I thought he did a great job for us, despite your reservations about old footballers. And Xhaka hasn't done a bad job at the Mackems either, despite him being all of 31 years (shudder, that's OLD), when he signed for them.
But Bruno is apparently physically limited. Although those limitations don't appear to have stopped him being our best player since he signed. And, apparently, he has just had a pretty good world cup, (THIS world cup, not the one 4 years ago when he was 24,) until he missed that penalty. How does he manage it I wonder? Lots of Vit C supplements?
My point is, Arsenal slinging in a valuation of 60 million (they haven't actually bid anything yet), sounds extremely low ball to me, yet you seem to want to bite their hand off for this physically challenged bloke who sounds like he would struggle to run onto a football pitch, never mind be a brilliant player and fantastic leader.
If Bruno wants to leave for more money and a chance to win things then good luck to him, he has been a fantastic leader for us, and deserves a move if that's what he really wants. But 60 million? Fuck off. 80 million minimum, or tell cheapskate Arsenal to bugger off.
Thanks, John, for the comment.
Personally, I would insist on 80m, and certainly wouldn't accept 60m. If I gave that impression then it was a mistake. My point was what I thought the club would accept and I think it might be in the 70s.
Certainly Bruno is by far our best and most important player. No question, as I point out in the piece. My main point, I think, is the comparison between what he's worth to us and to them. He struggles to cover the ground, which was why Tonali ended up at 6, rather than Bruno. Is he better than Ødegaard, Rice, Zubamendi? I don't know as I don't watch them play, but I do watch Bruno every week and I see flaws alongside the massive contribution.
For me Trippier's legacy is more mixed, I think. He was outstanding for 12 months certainly, but it's often forgotten that he was actually injured for the great run in 2021 that kept us up. In the last two years I've seen a player who gave the ball away a lot, was often caught out of position, and no longer delivered a good dead ball. And that's leaving to one side his off-field issues that prevented him from being picked for long periods.
But then I'm a misery who always sees the negative elements. I'm sure that makes me unduly harsh in my assessments sometimes. Happy to acknowledge that.
Glad we agree on the 80m valuation. My opinion for why Tonali ended up a 6 instead of Bruno is more to do with Bruno being a much more creative player than Tonali. Remember that half a season when everyone went on about how brilliant Tonali was, but no-one could figure out exactly what he was supposed to be doing? We got one half decent season out of Tonali, then he wanted out. His body language was terrible for most of last season and I'm glad to see the back of him. I'll take Trippier's brilliant one to two seasons over Tonali any day, at least Trippier always looked like he was trying. Apart from that I think you and I are in complete agreement!
Too bad if he does go. This team being assembled looks like one that could use a guy like Bruno. Maturity and grace under fire may be hard to come by with all these young faces.
"Where's Eddie?" Hopefully packing his bags before the official announcement of his sacking and the unveiling of his replacement!