Leeds have made their first signing of the window! Mateo Joseph Fernandez has joined from Espanyol's academy. He's yet to obtain a Wikipedia page but here's hoping he'll get some first team experience in the coming season(s)

Kieran Tripper to Newcastle United for £12m.

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And so Newcastle's signing spree begins! It sounds like Trippier wanted to come back to England as well so a good decision there.

And so Newcastle's signing spree begins! It sounds like Trippier wanted to come back to England as well so a good decision there.

 

Newcastle allegedly paying him £160k a week. No relegation release clause, but he still gets paid £160k a week. There is no way Newcastle are going to be challenging for Champions League for a while let's put it that way. Trippier must be pissing himself.

Where in the premier league could Aaron Ramsey and Philippe Coutinho play? I don’t see an obvious move for either.

Are Newcastle not 11th on the list of highest wage bills in the premier league?

Newcastle allegedly paying him £160k a week. No relegation release clause, but he still gets paid £160k a week. There is no way Newcastle are going to be challenging for Champions League for a while let's put it that way. Trippier must be pissing himself.

 

Yeah I can only see Newcastle becoming a QPR-2012 and signing loads of has-beens on ridiculous wages with zero work ethic.

Where in the premier league could Aaron Ramsey and Philippe Coutinho play? I don’t see an obvious move for either.

 

They will both have plenty of suitors. There is still a player in Coutinho, but I do find the Villa links really odd with Buendia already there. The problem for both players is their best position is what a lot of teams don't play with anymore (an out and out #10).

 

Yeah I can only see Newcastle becoming a QPR-2012 and signing loads of has-beens on ridiculous wages with zero work ethic.

 

Oh totally. The problem they are going to quickly encounter is the players that are signing now are not going to be good enough to that next level. I fully expect by then, it will be harder to have dodgy sponsorship deals etc. too. So they are going to be stuck with a load of average players on massive wages who they can't sell.

 

Think there might be a typo here! Unless Newcastle now have so much money they're paying themselves :lol:

 

In other news, Liverpool are reportedly close to signing Luis Diaz for £60 million.

Confirmed;

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Also this;

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Coutinho at Villa will be like Rodriguez at Everton 2 season ago imo, moments of brilliance but will ultimately amount to very little.

Edited January 7, 20223 yr by Dobbo.

Moving from Barcelona to Aston Villa feels like a little bit of a step down! It's a shame he didn't have the impact hoped during his time in Spain.

Maitland-Niles has now completed his loan move to Roma. Hopefully he'll be able to get the playing time he needs in Italy!

Burnley striker Chris Wood is travelling to the North East tonight to undergo a medical with Newcastle.

 

Newcastle have met his release clause this afternoon, thought to be in the region of £20m.

Aston Villa have agreed a fee with Everton for left-back Lucas Digne in a deal worth up to £25m.

Seems like a bizarre sideways move for him. Must have fallen out with the manager.

yeh i'm surprised he's left everton for villa, everton are a much bigger team going through a horrendous spell

I thought he was being linked to Chelsea which makes more sense from their perspective as Chilwell is always injured and Alonso is always Alonso.

Digne and Benitez fell out quite publicly, suspect Digne has been angling for a move for a while and he has probably been sold the project by Villa. I don't rate him massively, think he is a good player but he's always struggled for consistently. That said, he is a big upgrade on Matt Target and fits in line with the full backs Gerrard likes to have.