The College Dropout

I don’t think anyone thought Tonali was a bargain mind. That was a marquee signing. I think the idea of buying Tonali (or whatever premium CM), selling Bruno the next summer at peak value to align FFP and afford another premium CM actually makes a bit of sense. You would hope we’d be in Europe in that scenario.

I personally think a couple of last seasons transfers were a bit luxury in terms of price. And I think we should’ve been doing dodgy deals a lot earlier.

Aye I didn’t expect you to get a good fee and get all the wages off the books. I still don’t tbh.

I think everyone agrees it was the right decision given the circumstances. I think the club and fans feel we shouldn’t have been in that position though.

Been more proactive in doing shady deals and loopholes. Signing more players to flip. not given Joelinton the new contract until wee were good FFP wise. Spent a little less money in previous windows. make it clearer to players that they need to leave and make sure Eddie supports it publicly. In the end we got away with it and did the best we could in the last few weeks. Better Minteh than Gordon. But to end up there was bad - we almost still ended up there too. I think the club has already pivoted. I don’t think we’ll let ourselves be caught in such a last minute scramble. I think had Ashworth stayed or not had his head turned we would’ve navigated the process smoother. In January 2024 Best case scenario Ashworth planned to sell Bruno (solving all FFP issues + funds to spend more) or Joelinton and smaller sales.2 solid plans. In January Minteh isn’t worth £30m+ so selling him wouldn’t have been a realistic plan. When Ashworth left I think Staveley and co. overstepped and got the Joelinton deal done. That meant the only way to cleanly be compliant was to sell a purple. We apparently tried to shift the 3 players you named in January. That doesn’t close the gap enough.

He’s deffo right footed and prefers the left.

Barca senior players are always on serious wedge. I don’t see it. And he’s another right footer. Primarily off the left wing?

You might’ve been happy to sell regardless. But the wider view in the game is that Minteh could end up being worth much more than that pretty soon. Which is why a decent number of clubs wanted him at £30m+. It’s like selling a stock in a company that you bought early for cheap when the market thinks it’s going to continue to do well. I also don’t think the club thought it’s the optimal time to sell either. But we had debts to pay and it was the stock or the car or the house that had to go. Mate - a £300m revenue per year business needs hard plans for rules that will directly impact business performance. Being prepared means having several actionable plans in good time. In this case That means September or January at the latest. Selling Minteh - could not have been one of them until fairly late in the game. If it wasn’t for doing last minute shady deals with Forest AND getting comp for Ashworth - we still would’ve had to sell a purple. Eales said we would probably need to sell a purple…. Because he planned to sell a purple (Bruno) or a blue (Joelinton). Chelsea’s FFP strategy is to find loopholes and sell academy products. I know we didn’t plan to do the loophole thing until late in the day because our dodgy transfers with Forest were very very shit.

€60m would be a fantastic fee for Man U for Sancho. I liked the look of the Soule kid. Disappointed we aren’t in for him.

We clearly had our price for Bruno and the deadline was purposely lined up to help with the FFP deadline. And in any case - it doesn’t look like anyone bid £80m to test our resolve. The contract and clause was signed within this FFP window. BTW this is the scenario that gives the club the MOST credit. I hope you realise that. We knew we would have a FFP shortfall in October when the contract was signed. And by January we knew it would likely be £50m net. January is the latest we would need a decent FFP exit strategy and banking on selling Minteh wouldn’t have been a good strategy. Or Anderson for that matter. And it seems likely they both their transfers wasn’t enough which is why the Ashworth deal went through the same day. With FFP you need a proper fucking plan. With several different other routes. We were underprepared and a Minteh ACL away from selling the car or house. Or going grovelling in Chelsea, Leicester etc. for an even crazier deal than the Forest ones. I think we’ve learnt our lessons which is partly why this summer we are moving much slower.

You think that Anderson sale was legit?

You can wish we were able to keep him but still understand and accept the reasons he was sold. I mean… that’s pretty straight forward right? His release clause expired with a week to go before the PSR deadline (genuinely good decision that). Towards that deadline when it became apparent/increasingly likely the release clause would not be activated - that’s when the Minteh rumours started picking up. Likewise we started talking to Everton and Forest about dodgy dealings. so when it became apparent Bruno wouldn’t be sold, Minteh was as the only player besides the Crown Jewels that clubs actually wanted for some proper money so we had to sell him. Then we scrambled for the rest of the money which is why we ended up spending £20m for a failed £5m 29 year old GK and settled the Ashworth money by the FFP deadline. We should’ve been better prepared for Bruno’s release clause not being activated. I thought you were smart and could add basic events up.

This sale isn’t a model sale. The model is to sell players that are good but not good enough for us for a profit. KDB was deemed not good enough. That wasn’t the situation here. Nobody has said otherwise.

Way too much money on the bench. Money is spread too thin. No Haaland or Salah is fine but then not TAA/Robertson - or Arsenal anywhere? You have 3 players from the best 3 teams in the league last season. And none of them are the best asset from that club.

I do wonder if we can commit to £18-£20m cost this year (60m fee, 5 year contract over 100k) as it stands without a sale.

Aye fair. I would want closer to £10m. Something that would save us 12m overall including wages and the rest of his unamortised fee.

Wood profile was a bad fit. Always been a decent player.

Makes sense. Agreed. I believe him when he said he didn’t want to lose ASM. He likes having talented players. The lack of Targett rumours lends me to believe he’s on gooooood money. For me Trippier is an easy sale at the right price point. We have the replacement. His value is only diminishing. His position requires athleticism that is surely in decline. He’s not that useful off the bench either. If we sold him - I don’t think he NEEDS replacing in the squad. Certainly not with an expensive signing on big wages. id take £18m in a heartbeat. We should’ve sold him in January imo. We knew we needed at least £40m right?

The fee we received is only useful because of PSR. The amount isn’t impressive because smart money would say he has the very real potential to double that value in 24-36 months. It has no sell-on or buyback to capitalise from that future potential either. The sale isn’t impressive. Selling £100m for Kane is impressive because Kane will never be worth more than £100m again. If he was doing this for us in pre season, there would be talk that we didn’t need a top quality RW. That would be a discussion rn. At the least we would be excited that we have something in our hands. It was necessary business. Some are acting like the fee made it shrewd business and that’s not the case.

Chelsea fans are used to it (KDB, Salah) but they have 2 CLs and a gang of PLs to help.

I don’t love their business. But I like how they are publicly pushing back at the core of FFP and why it’s here. And they seemed way better prepared in dealing with their shortfall than we did. And they’ve added a lot of players they can FFP flip in the process. Still like Brightons moves. I’m super interested to see how they deal with their RW. Brought in Minteh and that Duberry kid. Both young and raw. I assume they’ve been promised good minutes.

I wonder what impact the last couple of months have had on PIFs stance. Unfortunately Eales is still peddling the lines of FFP having ‘unintended consequences’ or words to the effect. While Villa tell it how it is.

This is a way better argument than acting like he’s worth the money. Hes worth the money to us because it allows Forest to buy Anderson, thus making us PSR compliant and literally saving us 1-10 points. Buying him at £20m directly indirectly got us 1-10 points that’s fair market value. This is defo more a problem for Forest than us though. I maintain that anchoring is the best idea for the PL. You don’t want us and City building Galactico teams that nobody can compete with. But you can’t FMV transfers man.

£15m no? I personally think that’s close to Anderson’s true value.

Hope so.