The College Dropout

At the beginning of the window we wanted RW, CB, CB/LB, ST. We’ve signed 1 of them. Thats why people are disappointed.

No point discussing with @tarie4. They’ve read our perspective from at least 3 ppl at this point and hasn’t conceded any ground. At this point Tarie is suggesting the club doesn’t make plans and that’s all good. It’s not a valid conversation.

That’s crazy if true. I still don’t think it’s true. Aye. £150k would make Kelly one of our highest earners. Probably higher than Trippier. That’s wrong. IMO that’s a killer for the wage structure. If Hall cements his place at LB, he fairly gets to demand £170k+. When Botman gets an extension, 150k is the start of negotiations. Those salaries for free transfers makes renegotiation for existing players very difficult. I said this of Villa when they brought in Kamara and Tielemans. Paying crazy high salaries for free transfers is fine when you’re Real Madrid. Everybody else should pay a nice sign-on bonus and the higher end of what the player would ordinarily get - not double.

Barnes joined in July. Think he played a few in pre season. Barnes just second choice LW.

Neither is Howe.

Good post. We are making trade offs. I do think missing pre season is tough for the RW. Isak still struggled with the intensity of Howe ball last season. His second pre season with Howe will do him the world of good. Likewise Hall suffered massively from the lack of pre season too. Moreso. Chelsea didn’t even take him on tour iirc.

Isn’t that the problem? We’ve picked up all the low hanging fruit - knowing it’s low hanging fruit. Id hoped we would now be executing the plan to bridge the gap. It feels like we are formulating that plan now rather. Growing pains.

It’s almost August 2024 - it’s still not clear almost 3 years later how we plan to get to and stay at the top. Revenue wise. Is it to wait for the City verdict? We need £150m extra in revenue year on year to compete regularly. Where is it coming from? Eales said we’ll do 300m this year. The worst top 6 club does 450m of memory served. That’s gigantic.

IF HE WAS UPSET GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES… IF…… GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES Im glad about the Minteh sale given the circumstances. The alternative sales were worse. But im annoyed that we were in such desperate circumstances to begin with. I thought we were better managed than that. Howe surely has insight into the circumstances regularly??? I assume?? He would know those were the best sales possible in late June. He could be angry we were in that position. But that’s not what I’m hearing. But I don’t believe it can be true.

But not to the extent it’s a problem ongoing as some rumours have suggested. I don’t believe it. Unless we get some new revenues in - we’ll have to sell much better players next season.

If he was upset by the Anderson sale given the circumstances. He must not understand the circumstances.

Not athletic enough for our midfield. Not a Howe midfielder for that reason. Also not an Arteta midfielder for that reason.

You think Kelly earns over £5m per year - £97k? I don't. I hope not tbh. Anything higher than £80-90k is crazy IMO. And will likely mean we'll not be able to sell him for a fee. I don't know about the signing-on fee going rate but that's at least a one-off payment. In any case Kelly @ 100k per week is 5.2m per year. Any more as a base salary is crazy IMO because he'll be impossible to resale. Hall's £27m fee is more than that for 1 year @ £5.6m. If Hall earns £50k @ 2.6m per year. That's £8.2m, still higher than your top end @timeEd32 and that's before any of the add-ons Chelsea apparently have. 5.2m for Kelly vs 8.2m for Hall seems about right. If Kelly is going to cost the same as wonderkid from a top club in accounting numbers..... we might as well get another wonderkid from a top club. At least 1 has resale value and won't kill the clubs wage structure. If Kelly earns £6m p/a how much should Botman get for an extension? Staveley maths might have Gordon on a 3.5 year contract, Kelly on 100k, Targett on 100k, Joelinton on 150k and a £60m bid for Olise on June 8th 2024. But I can't believe that to be true.

6m x 5 year contract - 30m. I guess Hall earns around £3m per year give or take 50%. So £9m for a year on the books. Kelly free transfer. 3.5-4.5m in wages I guess. Maybe a signing on fee too. However you shake it Hall’s book value per year would be considerably higher than his medium term squad back up in Kelly. Which for a club with our revenue - is sensible.

Expect Burn to start ahead of Kelly at LCB. Kelly will be at LB or the bench. Honest to God - if everyone was fully fit and we had a PL game tomorrow - I'm so confident Burn would start at LB. Howe adores him.

Willian replacement I assume

Is Kelly not free? And Hall £30m? Hall costs the flub about £9 per year and Hall £4m? Amortisation cost and wages. Highly paid professionals make mistakes all the time. See Boeing and err our political class.

I think that would be fine because Schar is here and looking great still. I feel like there’s always bargains to be had at CB (and massive duds).

Aye. It will require great scouting. But it’s not impossible. I love him But he’s not Harry Kane. there’s obviously a correlation between transfer fee/ wages and ability. Just not a strict one. Finding a better player than Schar for £30m is difficult but v. achievable.

I’ve suggested everything the excellent @Upthemags has and more actually. I think the club agrees with us. Which is why we’ve got Kelly at LB and not a £30m left back to compete with our other £30m left back. And at the moment we don’t seem to be looking at £55m RWs unless we can sell someone. Because spending a lot of money without several strategies to get us out of trouble - is stupid and won’t be repeated.

I couldn’t remember who it was I heard it from and it must’ve been Schweinsteiger on the Overlap. I think I’ve heard a couple other players say it happened to them too. Neville was acting like he couldn’t believe it. I’ve definitely heard it happen to other footballers. He’s either acting or totally naive cos of his career at Man U.

It's pretty common tbf.

Impossible?

£55m should get you a real player though. A serious player. At least for a CM. Only CL clubs or clubs with that ambition spend over £50m on one player. West Ham or previous Leicester or Everton’s would do 30s to high 40s. But 50m+ is big big money. It also comes with like a £7m yearly salary too in most cases. Perhaps a few of the Man U transfers aren’t on that type of money (AWB, Hojlund maybe).

I meant on paper Tonali’s ceiling is a world class player. The same is true of Isak. He had that reputation. None of the lads we have been linked too recently have the same reputation.