The College Dropout

I don’t think he did. We rode our luck at times. Last season he played Ange. This time he was a bit Moyes-esque.

Spurs, Ange and their £300m spend is on fraud watch though. Very predictable in attack. Vulnerable defensively.

7 points is an excellent return. We’ve been bad though. Press is poor. Slow predictable subs. Men behind the ball and inshallah defending.

Solid. poor on the ball though.

Cmon lads. It’s Spurs.

Nearly everyone is bad. You can tell morale isn’t there.

This is a common Eddie tactic.

Agreed. There’s no footballing ability at the back either. Not seen Tino on it yet this season either.

Isak has been poor. Usually his touch is so sharp. Thats deserted him. Got him and Gordon on FPL. Gordon is 70% going out next week. Isak might follow him.

Aye but we’ve looked better than we have. Spurs do play to our strengths mind.

The opposite for me. He’s on proper money, peak age, signed for good money - should’ve spent it on a right winger. A younger one.

There wasn’t a buyer in June. If there was - it wasn’t enough to move the needle enough for FFP.

I said PIF are ultimately responsible for the club. Everything good, everything bad. That’s true of all owners of football clubs. Why are PIF exempt? This idea that they just sign cheques and leave it to others is naive of how top level business is done.

He’s looked the same Chris Wood at times for Forest. Winning balls that go nowhere. Not holding it up. But they genuinely play to his strengths more. Obviously his confidence is up. We didn’t play to his strengths at all. I never thought Wood was a bad player. His record before and now after proves that. He’s just suited to our style and probably our club.

NUFC can buy a hotel in West London and sell it. It’s not a FFP cost and until the rule changed it counts as revenue when sold. If PIF were determined and savvy to make NUFC #1 world wide asap, they would find and exploit loopholes. They have the power to do it if the will and nous is there.

I don’t think the part about Miggy being ahead of Minteh in the coaches mind is true. It’s just a case of your second point. Nobody wanted Miggy. Forest were more savvy than us in the PSR trade. Anderson’s age and potential meant he was a good pickup at essentially £15m. They should be able to sell him for that or more in 3 years time which would break even. We need to sell that GK to Saudi for the same fee asap.

We could buy some (the cost is excluded from PSR and would be amortised anyway) then immediately sell it. But PIF don’t seem willing to do this type of acrobatics.

Selling Bruno for £100 wouldn’t have given close to £200m on a replacement. £50m just clears the FFP hole. £15m to the rest of his amortisation cost. We then spend £70m on his replacement. £14m amortisation, 7.5m in wages. 21.5m for a year. So the remainder of the fee pays for the replacements salary and Amortisation for the next 2 years. We need to be in a FFP position where we break even year on year. Otherwise we can’t reinvest fully. At least until we have a consistent funnel of players to sell for FFP.

Ok £25m. The point still stands. Smart money doesn’t buy Elanga for £50m though. Smart money doesn’t buy Guehi for £65m either. With a bit of savvy and nous, you get these boys 1-3 years earlier. With the knowledge it will take a few years for them to maximise potential and a bigger likelihood it doesn’t succeed at all. We seem to have no room for error. I can only assume that’s coming from PIF.

The pursuit of Guehi and Olise suggest we are ambitious. too ambitious for our FFP position and haven’t reconciled it. If we sign Tosin and Olise as planned. We are all thinking Europa League as a minimum. But the tightness of the budget means everything has to go perfectly all the time. That’s not reasonable to expect.

Aye. This why I’m questioning PIF. Why are management so risk averse?

I’ve no issue with the fee. My issue is the strategy. We should look to sign the next Elanga, the next Minteh. We seem to have pressure to deliver results immediately but we don’t really have the overall finances for that. Btw Elanga’s output is good. But his underlying stats aren’t so impressive.

So they are responsible for the good but not the bad? Abramovic was responsible for Chelsea. The good and the bad. The ruthless culture - that’s on him. The continued success that’s on him. Instant gratification, that’s him. But his approach actually made sense. I don’t know if PIF want European football every year from now. And will be ruthless in that regard eventually but also aggressively ensure we close the financial gap to the top 6. Or they want a ‘organic’ build based on developing younger players and some fluctuation in league finish. From the outside we look stuck between two stalls.

Elanga was purchased for £15m 12 months ago no? Maybe 24 months ago. To a club we would easily beat to the transfer. Trying to buy him for £50m in the summer isn’t indicative of savvy transfer market operators. Rutter, Gordon & Minteh were all purchased from distressed sellers. 2 of them were close to leaving for more money than they eventually went for earlier.

It’s weird for everything to be ultimately Ashley’s fault when he was owner. But PIF don’t have ultimate responsibility now.