peateabee

This decision seems like absolute insanity to me. Why on earth don''t you just loan him out to get first team football?! You can''t make this proposed model work properly if you''re selling your youth teams best prospects before they''ve even begun to reach their potential. This could be the equivalent of when we could have sold Maddison a couple of seasons back when that 300K bit came in. Thank goodness we didn''t take that eh? Besides he is a winger more than a number 10 isn''t he? We''ve only got 2 of those at the club, Murphy and Hernandez. (Watkins makes 3 if you count him as a winger, which I don''t. Oh and another clubs youngster with a potential attitude problem!). As a self sustaining club we can''t afford to make decisions like this, not giving good young players a chance, even to just reach their maximum potential market value.

slightly preferred the look of Nathael Julan, who we were linked with. This one strikes me as more of a risk than our other signings, but who knows. We certainly need a striker.

Pretty much a perfect display from the bench. Always looking to make things happen, and not only looking to make things happen, but actually delivering. He did seem really fired up today too! he worked really hard, harried the defence more effectively than Jerome as well and fought for and held the ball up well. If he can maintain that intensity and urgency to his game, maybe add a slight improvement to his team play, that added to the natural qualities he has, we might just have a genuine premiership quality striker on our hands. And we haven''t had one of those for quite a while.

I thought the areas for greatest improvement were - Working on different ways of playing out from the back (obviously we''re not going to be proficient at it yet!) - defenders looked a little hesitant in playing it into the central midfielders at times and the opportunity to ''get out'' passed by. (midfielders have to really work hard to give good options and make angles though! - it''s tough!) I also don''t think we used the wing backs enough to get out either. It was too slow in getting across to them - and the space they were often in had disappeared, so it had to go back again the other way. If our centre backs could get their switching of play up to scratch it might help. Toby Aldewiereld is a master of it at spurs. Also I thought we could have used the wing backs more effectively in an attacking sense, providing width in the final third. This would also provide more numbers in the final third, and I thought the numbers into that area as well as the movement in it could have been better as well. When we did get out from the back we were fairly slick in midfield, but often the impetus of the attack waned when we got nearer the box. These tactics definitely seem to have the emphasis on the ''team'', everyone needs to do there job, and do it to a good standard for it to function well. If we can become a well oiled machine, and I think we have just enough quality to pull it off, then it could be good come the end of the season.

I thought maddison was excellent today and showed great potential again. He is so comfortable on the ball. Looked good in a deeper position too - I think it could improve his game as his decision making will have to be spot on as he can take less chances there. However he wasn''t risk averse and still retained his creative and confident style of play. I think him and pritchard could play in the same team against certain opposition if he carries on playing like that, with pritchard playing higher up off a single striker and maddison linking play from slightly deeper.

Be interesting what the reaction from people would be if a 12.5 million pound bid came in for Josh. When the same happened for Jacob, everyone went weak at the knees and all a sudden it changed from ''he''s going nowhere'' to being ''a bid that was too good to be turned down for someone with one season in the championship under his belt''. And this despite the players massive potential value to us this season and in following seasons too. Something tells me that the same bid for Josh would not be viewed in the same way. (and no - the argument that selling one left us with the other as a direct replacement doesn''t cut it. For starters, they favour opposite wings.) But what if Josh wants to move, then you would have to sell if his head has been turned wouldn''t you? That was another line of argument with Jacob. Can''t play hardball for the good of the club and try to convince a player to stay - not when there is that much money on the table. Again, I think people might want to put up more of a fight this time around. Besides, 12.5m is not going to plug much of a gap for long in modern day football. If Jacob had helped us go up then the windfall of £100+ would have. It certainly would be a genius way of Newcastle getting both twins for just £20m upfront. Buy one with a little show of cash, then unsettle the other by offering him the chance to join his brother again. What a bargain that would be. Although I seriously doubt this will happen I think this hypothetical situation shows up some of the strange thinking that went on over the Jacob Murphy transfer. Jacobs transfer situation concerned me because, as a club we cannot afford to repeatedly follow this example and sell our best young players at the first sign of decent money - not when we need our best young players to get promoted. And promotion is where the serious money is to be found that would really benefit the club. So that is where our focus should be while we still have a real shot at it. Would Jacob Murphy staying have increased our chances of getting promoted - yes. Enough to find another way to plug a 5 million pound gap in the finances - I would have thought so. For the sake of the progress of the club we have to fight harder to keep our best young players in the future.

No thanks. Technically an decent player and I could see how his type might fit into how Farke''s team seems to be developing. However not a great team player and the team ethic is going to be important for us this year. Also at 29 now - if we spend decent money on him we won''t be getting it back and I can''t imagine he would be too cheap. (hasn''t he also been almost permanently injured since we sold him?!) Buying younger, hungrier players with potential to improve and command a greater transfer fee than we pay should be our mantra in all but the most exceptional circumstances.

The stupid thing is that nobody watches Match of the Day for Gary Lineker, they watch it for the football highlights (or the live game) - he adds hardly any value at all. Just get rid of him and to be honest you could probably get rid of the pundits too most of time - just show the football! Bet the audience figures wouldn''t go down much if at all.

I would have done everything possible not to sell Murphy, but would I sell Jerome for the right price, definitely. Of course having sold him you would then want to see the money used to buy a younger replacement of course, someone who looks like they might have the potential to be better. That is really the only way to drive a club like this forward, and is also why having a good scouting network is so pivotal. Bit like what happened with Howson and Dorrans, sell just after their peak, and look to the future. It''s what should have happened with Ruddy as well, having an ex england international goalkeeper on your books and having to let him go for free in the end is just the result of bad management and planning and is something a cash poor club like ours cannot afford to do.

Well, I don''t expect this to happen. Why would we sell Josh at this point in his career for anything other than an astronomical fee of say £20- £25m which is basically to say he is not for sale. Best left wing option we have, got an eye for goal, if he develops like it looks like he will he could be a cracking player that could drive the club forward. We must keep hold of these sorts of players for as long as we can! Anyway he could be worth significantly more with a second championship season under his belt. If we don''t get promoted and he wants to leave, we could always sell him then. My answer - he''s one of our own, so you can jog on by thank you very much. If only we had another version of him for the right hand side, wouldn''t that be good. (And yes, that paragraph should have also applied to Jacob in my opinion, the extra rebuild money should have been more creatively raised from elsewhere. But hey-ho. This time I will be astonished if this is not the line the club takes.)

[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]I''d still expect 3 or 4 new players in yet. Webber will spread the Murphy money around the positions and chuck in a loan or two towards the end of the window. Josh Murphy is primarily a left winger, so still think we might be a bit light on the right hand side. If Farke wants to use 3 at the back regularly then he''ll probably need another centre back, or at least an additional RB to free up Martin to centre back. Webber has already stated that Howson will be replaced, so a midfielder will come in. Whether it is one who goes forward to stays back will be interesting to see. So, 1 midfielder, 1 defender (CB or RB), 1 right winger and 1 ''other'' who becomes available on loan.[/quote] Glad to see some people at least acknowledging that in selling Murphy we might actually be a little short on the right and that Josh Murphy is not the direct replacement that I keep on hearing he his. He actually prefers to play off the left. The decision of whether to sell murphy was the right one is different question, but justifying it with the argument that they are essentially the same player and as such couldn''t have been fielded in the same team is codswallop. I wish people would just drop that and stick to the re-building argument that at least has some credence. Whether we are light in the right winger department depends on whether Farke''s preferred formation has an emphasis on 4-1-4-1 as it was at dortmund or whether that has suddenly changed to a 3-5-2 emphasis. They are played slightly differently and as such need players with slightly different specialisms to play them. I think at some point a decision needs to be made about the preferred system (hopefully it already has!) and then sign players accordingly. Otherwise we''ll be signing players for both formations and we''ll end up with a squad that is just as bloated as it was at the start of the summer.

Just seen we are already being linked with a midfielder where some of the Murphy money might go. Hanno Behrens, DM. 27 yrs old - so not that young, but a ''midfield motor'' apparently which I like the sound of. Midfield did not control games enough last season while offering protection to the back four. Don''t really want to see Tettey still playing there next season if possible. I think what this Murphy decision from Webber has actually done for me is to ironically raise what I expect for the season ahead.. For him to cash in on Murphy to rebuild the squad (hopefully we will actually sign some people). He had better be building a squad that is capable of taking us up. Frankly that''s the only thing that will excuse it in my mind.

Personally I think this is a shocking decision. Overall I''ve been ''pretty content'' (as Farke would say) with most of the changes this summer, but this is one I don''t agree with one bit. Was still an important player with his goals and assists stats last season despite blowing hot and cold as he was still adjusting in his first full season at that level. I think he could have been a vital player for us this season with this experience under his belt and would have thrived under the new coach and style of play. Also astonished that so many people can''t see that Jacob was not keeping Josh out of the team or vice-versa. It was simply the managers decision to just not field the two of them together (maybe their combined inexperience was his reason, after all you never win anything with kids. Or maybe it would have made our defence a little lightweight) But whatever his reason was, they remain different players. They can play in the same side and actually complement each others games as shown in the Fa youth cup side. They played on different wings for crying out loud. That side was better for having two Murphys in it instead of one. And I think the full team would have benefitted similarly in time. Infact this was the season, when having gained a little experience they could have ended up turning out together. Either on each wing, or with one as a pacey striking option. All that promise of a partnership, and then for one to leave at the moment we might get to see what potential it really had is most dissappointing. He was ''one of our own'' (a rare thing in football these days) and frankly we didn''t put up that much of a fight to keep him. Given his contract situation at the very least we should have been able to keep hold of him for another season if we really wanted to. Better players with bigger profiles than Jacob Murphy have been convinced to stay at a club. If we did want to keep him and Webber couldn''t convince him then he needs to take a long hard look at how he handled this situation. Bizarrely it seems to me that we just weren''t that desperate to keep one our best young players who if he fulfilled his potential this year might have helped drive the club forward. If you buy young and hungry players, with the aim of developing them, but then you sell those players as soon as it looks like they might be getting good, what is the point. At some point you have got to draw a line. Players you want to keep for as long as possible for the progress of the club otherwise you are nothing more than a glorified feeder club to the teams you want to be displacing from the Premiership. Pritchard, Maddison, the Murphys. These are the players where the lines should be drawn, where we keep them as long as is absolutely possible. Howson and Dorrans, these are the players we are rightly selling for progress sake, whose monetary value is only diminishing and whose footballing value will be soon. Not Jacob Murphy, at least not yet. No-one really knows what we are selling or how good he could be. And he was certainly good enough to wait and see a little longer. Obviously a coach of the calibre of Rafa Benitez thought this was a good deal for Newcastle. Honestly I suspect that this is the hard end of the wedge for the clubs mismanagement of players relegation clauses and parachute payments that has left us with too high a wage bill and not enough cash to rebuild the squad. (Those relegation clauses obviously weren''t worth the paper they were written on if they''ve scuppered us just a year down the line - Do they not continue to re-adjust in line with the reduction in parachute payments?) But despite this potential reasoning for the decision I still do not agree with it. For someone who said we needed to be creative in the transfer market Webber has taken about the least creative option available - selling one of our biggest potential assets for this and future seasons, who might have been worth even more financially this January let alone this time next year. This MUST be a one off. What happens if a 12m bid for Pritchard comes in now. Thats good money again. Would we take that as well? Someone offers 5m for Maddison. He hasn''t played much - quite a good offer. Take that as well? We''ve got loads of options in that area of the pitch. I assume we''re selling Josh next summer when he looks like he''s getting good too? All goes into the pot for rebuilding that defence I suppose. Despite the fact we''ve already signed three defenders this summer. Or were they not good enough for the first team? And if they were do we desperately need 12m pounds to play with for making additions? I guess we will see what Webber and Farke think about that in coming weeks. But we had better buy someone with that money, and they had better be worth it, Despite all that I''m still looking forward to the new season, and still reasonably positive about it too. Just gutted it was a murphy who we decided to cash in on, so early in his norwich career.

[quote user="king canary"]@peteabee Id agree with you if we were talking about him moving to a team like Liverpool or Spurs where he''d be unlikely to start. But a move to a newly promoted team like Newcastle would actually be pretty sensible for him - playing at the top level in a team where he''ll probably get games. Don''t see it being the kind of move to stall his development.[/quote] I can see your point. If he was to move to a prem team right now, Newcastle are not a bad option. He will likely have to displace Ritchie or Atsu from the wings depending on how they line up, but that is not unimaginable. However a team starting the season looking over their shoulder at the relegation zone, which Newcastle and about half the prem will be doing is not always a great environment for a young player to learn his craft! He blew a little hot and cold for us even in the championship, if he starts doing that in the prem and Newcastle are lower down the table he might not be given that much time. If he had the confidence and experience of learning how to really tear it up CONSISTENTLY in the championship, then that would be an even better platform to make a move in my opinion. Then he might be automatic first choice and wouldn''t be in a position of learning on the job quite as much. I think a move now for him is a calculated gamble, and one with not too much room for failure - he has to hit the ground running and he might not have all the tools to do that just yet. A move next season is just a safer long term bet on his career I think. (All said with my NCFC hat firmly in position! He''ll probably move and crush it )

[quote user="king canary"]I do wonder if those who say ''we can sell him as we have Josh'' actually watching him them very much- they are quite different players.[/quote] Completely agree. And their games even intermesh really well as shown by their time in the youth team. Plus that understanding of each others game is such an asset in the final third. Why have one when you can have both is what I say!