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You see I think Eddie wants 'PL proven' or possibly 'CL proven from abroad' this summer purely as a consequence of the learnings from the last CL campaign. Him and the coaches simply won't get the time on the grass with the new signings this year due to the congested scheduling caused by the CL demands. He's not going to be able to bed them in nor develop them as he usually does hence why he needs proven pro's at the top level (preferably PL I assume due to that being where the majority of our games will be played) but, even if they've played at CL level, at least he can use them with confidence in that competition whilst they learn to cope with the demands of the PL. If we weren't in Europe, I think it would be a summer of high level players with upside we've seen before. As it stands, I think he'd happily play a Murphy over an Elanga in the CL because Elanga can cope with the PL every week, as an example. It gives him a chance to rotate his squad with players 'competition ready' across the range we'll have to play. Presumably he might have to change course on this policy if we can't land Pedro, Guehi, Elanga etc but I think this is the reason we've massively geared the summer towards PL experienced players. I think it's purely a time thing rather than a massive change in policy or him preferring to buy PL players which often gets bandied about. He's such an intelligent bloke, just like he learned what to change after the Carabao Cup Final defeat to Man U, he'll have learned loads from our first stint in CL imho.

Fuck me I'm blind.

I don't know if those are glacial pace or not so can't really comment. What I do know is that those projects wouldn't even be considered under different ownership.

£50m spent already and all they've done is sign a player they already had and replaced their best player. They'd need to spend quadruple that just to have a fighting chance.

I share these concerns tbh. It seems like we are fighting losing battles going in for these players, but we have to give it a shot I suppose. The crucial part is what our back up plans are. Hopefully we've got cards to play which we are keeping closer to our chest, but we aren't going to know that until the window has closed.

Hope you’re right but not so sure, we’ll have a much better idea at the end of the window.

He has never been a high priority for them even though they’ve been interested in him and every other player available more or less. Have no idea why you mention “deeper pockets” as that’s exactly what I’ve said and that’s my point why we haven’t moved quicker which I think we would have done if we weren’t quite as restricted because of PSR. You seem to defend more or less everything, but in this case there’s nothing to defend. If it wasn’t for PSR I think we would have had this deal signed and sealed already, absolutely certain of it!

Yes and no. The selling club would naturally slow down the deal to invite the big six, and it’s working.

I’ve seen little proof of that considering the glacial pace the two main infrastructure projects are moving at.

Then we need to come to terms with competing with clubs who aren't CL material for players. Our competition for signings should be Villa, Brighton, Brentford etc.

He’s a RW, wonder if he’s going to be Murphy’s main competition this upcoming season

And that’s while up and coming teams like Brentford and Bournemouth weaken. PSR working a treat.

You won, Chelsea. Enjoy Joao Pedro, I hope he makes you very happy. Dear Lord, what a sad little life you have. You ruined our summer completely, so you could buy everyone, but I hope now you spend it on getting some lessons in grace and decorum because you have all the grace of a reversing dump truck without any tyres on.

You don't think Chelsea would have muscled in regardless? They've allegedly been talking to him since early June. We've just targeted another player where the competition has far deeper pockets and more clout than us.

Brighton signed Charalampos Kostoulas for £30m. A striker.

Imagine we missed out on him to Chelsea.

Burn the thread!

Someone can correct me on this, but it appears, your Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal & Chelsea are buying, but many others aren't, yet. No coincidence it's the teams who can throw money around, all the years of fixing has facilitated that.

The loophole we should be exploiting would be for the club to purchase any property that the Ruebens are looking at & then immediately sell it on to them. The initial outlay wouldn't count against PSR but the income would.

Obvious answer to most of this is we're not a vanity project but just an investment

I imagine it’s because we’d easily become the most hated club, the cartel already want to destroy us and they’d lobby the governing bodies to hand out the harshest punishment in the history of football. We’d probably go down minimum three leagues and get transfer bans for years as well. It would be a dream scenario for the cartel if we broke the rules

I think so. Because if we would have been able to agree a fee earlier then I doubt he’d turn us down and wait for Chelsea. Every penny counts in this PSR era unfortunately.

Not sure what else the club can do tbh. If another club comes in with a higher bid, offers higher wages, then we’re fucked. We’ve clearly been able to sell the ‘project’ to certain players but others just will always go where the £££’s are. Clubs aren’t going to do us favours, especially if they don’t need to sell. Seemingly they (or the players agent) make it known we’re after player x to drive up more interest, why wouldn’t they? And if a high profile club with bottomless pockets are interested, we’re likely, fucked. Can’t even blame Chelsea really, they didn’t set these rules. (Onboard with them being total cunts though).

I'm not sure why at this point, PIF don't just blow the whole thing apart, buy whoever they want, pay the wages required and see what the premier league do. Make it political, whisper that it's anti saudi/arab and dare Masters/UK government to fine, relegate, sanction or penalise the Saudi owned NUFC. Speak with Villa, Forest and other clubs in a similar situation to us and get them to do the same thing. Alternatively we continue to struggle to compete with the six existing clubs whose revenue is off the charts compared to us and in some cases always will be.