I reckon they should be all over Maddison, Barnes and Tielemans from Leicester. I think all three would move as well
As said above by Mick. Shelvey, Longstaff, Hayden and Hendrick are not good enough for where the Geordies want to go.
I think Burn is not a bad player. Has his uses but is not a left back. Much better at centre half but definitely a player who would stay around even as a squad player and not grumble so a good option to have.
I doubt that we would try to get Maddison, Barnes and Tielemans in one window but wouldn't say no. Tielemans looks like the obvious one for me, having said that we were chasing Maddison in the Summer and we don't usually give up on targets if we're not successful in the first window. We went back and got Botman during our second window and we tried to bring in Ekitike before he decided to go to PSG. Luckily, we seem to miss a few targets who turn out not to be as good as we’d hoped and get the ones who work out well. I don’t know if that is just good luck or if these players aren’t being managed when they move or are going to clubs that don’t suit them.
I’ve got no problem with Burn playing in the centre of our defence other than that Botman is much better and is much younger.
We had a huge problem with our squad age when Ashley left as he didn’t want to spend money on new players so we were extending contracts of the older players that we already had. Howe has acknowledged that this is a problem for us and we’ve said that we want to reduce the average age of the squad. We were screwed during the first transfer window as we had to go for experience which in turn meant that we had to bring in players that we may not have wanted to bring in under ideal conditions.
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