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We are also getting to the point where we will need to start raising our wage ceiling if we want the best players. At the moment we will lose some players because we just can't pay as much as the cartel. We've done brilliantly to keep punching above our weight, but that won't continue forever.

Lovely, then we should hopefully have 100 of them!

Yeah I mean it probably is enough, just going off previously years where we usually have had 6-7 games. TBF that usually includes double headers like the Sela Cup which are two different teams.

Scouts would be getting paid 'normal' wages - 50-60k a year. It's mostly part time so probably even less than that

Failing to put a comma before the 000's would be as bad as putting your socks on before your underpants And using K is for spivs. Wouldn't trust a user of K as far as I could throw them. Sorry if that offends any spivs who read this, but it's based on extensive real life experiences

Still concerned about going with an inexperienced, young goalkeeper as our number one in such a big season. Would love to keep Pope as our number one and introduce Trafford slowly, with the ability to take him out of the limelight and have an assured, reliable counterpart. A couple of mistakes and a knock in confidence could leave us in a bit of crisis, and at 22 it is very likely those moments will come. I think he will be a quality player in time, but there's a reason why goalkeepers often look at their best in their early-mid thirties.

On the flip side I had just got to my hotel in New York when we announced Rafa as boss and I went out in the city that night and had a great time. Crazy how good Rafa made it seem during his time here.

He's communicating through body language - "This is me, I'm a massive twat".

More than enough IMO. Players are still playing now!

You can tell there's no football on can't you?

You're made for each other.

The life of a third choice keeper is the absolute dream

So we have: Celtic 19th July Arsenal 27th July K League XI TBD Spurs TBD Atletico 9th August 5 fixtures seems a bit light for a pre-season - would we not expect one more domestic/local one either before or after Celtic?

Thought occurred to me. If you employed 30 scouts full time, and paid them all 200k per year, that would cost 6m a year. You'd only need to produce one 6m pound profit annually - ie, sell one well-scouted player per year - to break even. I have no idea what our scouting network is like. But you'd hope we have full time scouts based locally to every major league globally, with a shared data set, all hunting the next 2-10m buys for 20-50m sells.

Yeah rooting for the team to lose so that the manager would be sacked, for two different fucking managers, what the fuck.

That's one thing I would really miss with Pope, I love a keeper who claims the high crosses, and Pope is exceptional at it.

Common in every age goalkeeper tbh

Probably impossible to do. Absolutely impossible, but you can still dream

Arsenal pushing for Guehi according to The Athletic, doubt he'd be happy playing second fiddle to Saliba or Gabriel.

See some comments about young keeps, aren't mistakes 100% common amongst them? And it's the mid 20s to late 20s development that really sets them apart?

As fans we tend to focus on the ceiling and how high we want it to get, whereas Howe and his team also have an eye on the floor and bringing that up too, both are equally important.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Dy9UED5Q1bk?si=7ty-Rh3GCuUgTcsA

Ideal window for me is: In Trafford (30 mill) Guehi (40 mill) Ederson (40 mill) Jao Pedro (50 mill) Akliouche/Elanga (40 mill) Ramsay (30 mill) Total: 230 mill Out Longstaff (15 mill) Willock (25 mill) Targett (5 mill) Kelly (20 mill) Dubravka (5 mill) Vlachodimos (10 mill) Total: 80 mill Net Spend: 150 mill. Probably impossible to do.