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It's also not our job to criticise the club because of bullshit theories and opinions but its happening all the time.

Even without PSR, with Chelsea at the table he'd have waited for them because even without PSR we want to be a club that run correctly, that means have a sensible wage structure. If you really want to criticise the club, ask why they are pursuing someone who has been hinting at wanting a move to London. That would be a more fair arguement in my mind... but we dont know what hes said to us in private.

It’s not our job to come up with alternatives. He wouldn’t cover LCM anyway. He would change the shape of the team.

It's not something you can put in writing, but it should be fairly obvious to most by now that the law is equal, but it's more equal for some than others.

Its not an issue whatsoever. It again comes back to our lack of activity in the 3 previous windows leading some to the false idea that we will immediately sign players early in the window without any issues.

I didn’t say that he couldn’t turn us down. I said that I doubt he’d would have. Yet again, I’ve already said that I think PSR restrictions is the main reason why we haven’t been able to agree a fee already and probably have got this deal signed and sealed already. Because if it was possible to agree a fee earlier then I think he would have come.

Hes a high enough priority for them to pay 50m+. It's very easy for Chelsea to tell his agent that they are interested and that if he waits for them they will offer him a better contract. Meanwhile his agent is also negotiating with us. It happens all the time.

I'm not defending, if anything I think we should be more flexible with our pool of targets. I just don't think speed is the issue in this instance.

I understand the sentiment but can he be? It's kinda obvious these are his targets.

We sign Trafford and maybe one more. If we’re lucky. Howe must be pulling his hair out - performed near miracles with a fairly stale squad and asked for the recruitment to be quick and precise - he’s been badly let down. Piss poor from the club so far this summer. The word rudderless has been said a few times on here because it’s absolutely spot on.

Maybe you are right. I don't really know the details behind Everton's new stadium project or how quickly that developed, would have to do some research for a comparison.

Of course he could. He could say he hasn't made his decision yet. Time hasn't been an issue. It's the money and pull of the cartel.

Bring. Him. Hyem.

Under Ashley, definitely. Under a different owner, I don’t see why not. Just look at Everton for proof.

I do think them being so far behind Leeds and Burnley is a bit of a red herring mind , they literally threw the last 6 games of the season once they had the playoffs secured, I don't think they will be anywhere near as bad as any of the promoted clubs last season either . That being said they will almost certainly finish in the bottom 6 but could still scrape enough points to stay up.

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.