The College Dropout

Oh I missed that. I thought it didn't go through yet. So yeh - 6 out of 6 did business together. The rumour was 100% on the button.

We are in a similar boat to Villa. We both need to find an additional £100m in revenue per year to continue to compete at the top end with current rules.

That rumour about 6 clubs needing to sell ended up being more true than not. Everton Chelsea Villa Forest Newcastle All of these clubs did business with at least 1 other club. Only Leicester of the clubs named didn't get involved or make a sale. But they did make £10m from their manager. IMO there's more truth in a lot of press news than fans like to think. Many fans believe if a transfer doesn't happen, it means the club was never interested, for example. When I think often clubs like to have a little sniff to see if the price is right or to gauge player interest. Sometimes agents talk up things but that's still something. Not to say believe everything or everything is concrete. But I refused to believe that initial story and only started to believe it when I realised we were definitely selling Minteh. And all the other teams have strong links of sales. I refused to believe the Gordon links but now I'm convinced there was something to that - even if it was just exploratory conversations.

I want a left footer at RW.

The Anderson sale is a farce tbf. It’s proof that we weren’t sufficiently prepared. Scot some balance - over a quarter of the league weren’t prepared either.

He’ll block it - obviously.

I said the same thing earlier today. If not for the surprising emergence of Minteh - we would’ve had to go begging to Chelsea and co. got favourable shady deals or sell Gordon or the like. That’s baaaad man. I said it before that Minteh deal is 70% great talent spotting and 30% luck. No club would model that a 19-year-old would 4x his value in 12 months.

Kaka in rating the Nigerian player shocker.

Ok man.

I don’t think so. Our forecasted FFP position for the next financial year probably puts us back in the red before we add a single new transfer or wages. Hence why we will sell a couple more to keep us compliant for next summer. im not so confident on that. But the losses we racked up aren’t one offs. The revenues we’ve added don’t cover the costs.

All that i've concluded is that we needed more than the Minteh sale to be FFP compliant. The extent - I'm not confident about. I err towards believing we gently explored selling Gordon/Isak but we would only consider it at the full value for them both and nothing at all materialised close enough. We've ended up selling 2 players that at least don't create new problems. We could lose a CM and selling Minteh doesn't create a new problem. Which is positive.

I shouldn't bite. But do you think we actually want the GK that we now have? I'm stepping away from this discussion.

???? Aston Villa need the additional revenue. It's a fact. If Villa wants to continue to compete at the top end of the league - as the rules stand - they need to generate more revenue than they currently do. Match day income is 1 lever they will need to exploit. We are in the same boat.

As CEO - i'm not sure it's his remit to come up with the plan. Approve it - sure. Plan A seems to have been sell Bruno. Plan B sell Miggy and co. No way could they have known 4 months into his loan that Minteh would be worth £30m+ by the summer. And that we could sell Anderson for £30m+. These are clearly developments over the last few months and in Anderson's case - weeks maybe even days. 1. Yes so you've proved my point. An element of the Anderson fee is a favour - that we have either paid back already in part or in full. 2. I have no agenda. The Bruno sale makes the most sense. If you think the club planned to sell Minteh for £25m more than we bought him for within 12 months - I can't help you. That's not a sensible plan. In April/May/June where he's continued to impress and has emerged as a hot prospect, aye it's a decent back-up plan. And even then that figure seemed short of what we needed.

This is a perfect reason to release a statement. Until yesterday a lot of people were saying "the club would never let us be in a position to NEED to sell at the last hour to meet FFP restrictions". Optimistic Nut called me a prick or a cunt for pointing out that uhhhh... that's definitely happening right now.

Aston Villa also need to increase their revenues as much as we do. I assume they have less levers than us to utilise as well so price hikes on ST is obvious. We'll need to do the same.

Nobody hates him. Seems a ncie lad. Great attitude. Thanks Miggy.

There's no way we "knew" that in January which is the latest point we should've been formulating an escape plan.

It doesnt make any sense. 3.5 + year option for us. Aye. If it was 3.5 surely we would be in contract negotiations already. Maybe it was smart FFP play. Have 3.5 year contract with an option for 1-2 more years. That front loads his amortisation costs. If we extend at the end of the 3.5 year period he would’ve amortised nearly all his fee.

That 3.5 year deal makes no sense in hindsight. Surely you sign a promising player that needs to develop to a 4-6 year deal? Like the Isak deal.

How are we going to rapidly increase revenues from here? How are we going to increase our revenues by £75-£100m per season in the next 3 years? That's what we'll need to do to continue to spend and not sell players.

1. We already gave Forest cash for a player we don't want or need. 2. I genuinely think the plan was to sell Bruno. It's the only plan that makes sense. The Minteh situation 70% great scouting, 30% luck that he's been so impressive, so quickly. And even then - he's been so good, we shouldn't sell him. These things look great on paper. But within context, you have to ask a few questions. Yes - they've done a great job overall. This situation hasn't been great though.

Agreed. The only thing with the Swiss, like Solvakia, they might lose their nerve. At 2-0 against Italy, it was way more nervy than it needed to be. The defence look ropey as owt. I don't care what anyone says - you don't want Walker, Trippier & Stones as 3/4 of your back 4 and the main leaders under pressure. City they play up high away from goal and have other players to bring composure. Movement still spins Walker. Stones & Guehi is two sweep-up type defenders. We need a more aggressive one in there. Trippier is Trippier - never been amazing defensively.

I think it's clear from his cameo - that Saka has seemingly forgotten how to play as a LB/LWB. He looked like he had no idea what to do. Maybe he can re-learn in a few days. Btw that Foden offside as awful, awful play from him. Miles offside considering the position of him and Trippier. In that moment, he had 1 job and failed miserably.

Really don't want MGW. Where is he going to play?