The College Dropout

Aye it’s bad. I thought Villa had messed up and they’ve been sorting out deals for weeks. We’ve messed it up worse.

We needed a RW more than we needed a LW. Lots of us said that at the time. ASM barely played yet we spent £40m for his replacement to sit on the bench. That doesn’t make sense. From a PSR and footballing perspective. Committing £60m for Barnes over the next 5 years was a bad idea considering we don’t have a viable RW option. We needed a CM. We didn’t need to spend £50m on a CM though. Ultimately the ends justify the means. If we managed to finish 4th and got to the CL QF we wouldn’t need to sell and we would say spending so much on the squad got us there. That didn’t happen. And with the transfers we made imo that was unlikely. So you have to say that was a misjudgment and poor decision making. the decision making in January seems to be even worse. Someone needed to go.

I’m not sure if it’s competence. But they are not perfect. Not by a long shot. Mistakes have clearly been made. We should’ve shifted lads in the winter when we had the chance. a lot of people seem to think there’s some kind of infallible masterplan. That’s not the case. Nobody plans to be in this position.

Posters like you are in for a rude awakening.

What does this mean?

Thats why it’s a small group of clubs trading with each other. The rest will attempt predatory pricing.

Aye. They should be warming the players up for it.

Short of selling Gordon and the like. We can’t do this.

Tbf letting this get down to the last 48 hours is very bad.

If we were able to sell Miggy and satisfy the requirements, would you think that would be inexcusable? I think not selling Trippier was a mistake. And we probably overspent in the summer. All massive fees. Mistakes have been made. But unless we are forced to sell a star player, I don’t think it’s gross negligence. It’s close though. If Minteh didn’t have that breakthrough year, we’d have to sell a star player it seems.

You better believe it buddy. The rush for the end of the month means we arr on track to breach. Sales after that is to create headroom for more transfers. I don’t think having to sell is gross mismanagement either. But having to sell Minteh does mean we’ve miscalculated along the line. He’s not one we would happily trade. Having to sell Isak Gordon or Bruno would be gross mismanagement. we do have to wake up to the fact we don’t have masterminds in charge. They wil make mistakes. They wil take risks that backfire. imagine if we didn’t have Minteh to sell. We would have to sell an even more valuable player.

I don’t think it’s staggeringly bad. When Eales said we need to trade that was foreboding selling players we might not want too because of FFP. We aren’t selling our finest China. Having to sell the best players would be staggered flu bad management. If we were able to shift Miggy or even a Wilson we would say we’ve managed PSR well. Having to sell Minteh - a potential superstar is bad and evidence of miscalculation at best. But not gross mismanagement. 1/4 of the league are in the same boat.

This is fair. We are in a bad spot. But not the worst spot. The worst thing about our approach is that we’ve left it so late. When Villa sold Luiz we had few outgoing links. I thought we were ok. Now there’s multiple stories a day.

Aye. I agree it’s not the worst situation. But scrambling around 48 hours trying to get players off the books is desperate like.

Not this again.

Tbf we didn’t know we were heading towards failing PSR. The club must’ve known it was a real opportunity which is why I think we courted transfer offers. Eales put out that message and there was a rush of bids for a few of our players. My best guess is that we thought we could make up the gap in league prize money? Knowing what we know now. It was a mistake.

Maybe. But why would Adidas do underhand dealings? Sela are a legitimate business and we are a high potential club. By circumvention I’m talking doing something we wouldn’t otherwise do because of PSR. Eg selling the stadium. A thousand official partners. Deals with Adidas as a partner is not circumvention. There’s no evidence of a proxy war. Others are fighting. And we are not. Seemingly. Chelsea exploited loopholes from the start with the 8 year contracts. We could’ve done that. We can sell property too. We could do 20 999,999 deals. Chelsea even have a fake main sponsor. It’s risky and aggressive. That’s not our approach. Success should come but the road will be a long one - unless others do our dirty work or we pivot approach. Villa and Forest owners have come out against the PL. We’ve not done that either.

Makes quick deal easier.

I think any swap deal we do would be for a backup player. We don’t have saleable assets at 40/50m that we want to sell. I like Murillo but we don’t have anyone to trade him for at a similarish price point.

Don’t believe the rumours at all. Imo the club is putting this out to show what a shitshow PSR is and to soften the blow of selling Minteh.

Something something PSR.

This is just PSR crap. If not for PSR we wouldn’t want DCL or Elanga. But we are in a ‘well scratch your back if you scratch mine’ situation with a small group of clubs. Looking to trade players of similar value and picking the best of a bad bunch.

I would be happy with Anderson for Elanga. Do we have a relationship with Forest beyond the bald guy? I don’t believe the Gordon shit for a minute. I think the Gordon/Isak stuff has been put out there to soften the blow of selling Minteh or Anderson.

A good deal from Adidas is not FFP circumvention. Don’t get the second paragraph. I’m not saying PIF aren’t ambitious. But it’s not the same aggressive approach taken by City. City wanted to dominate the league and Europe as fast as possible and would exercise any legal (and potentially illegal) manoeuvre to get there and maintain it. Including being uncooperative with the league and UEFA and now taking some of them to court. PIF so far have shown no ambition to be so aggressive and adversarial. It looks like they are happy enough to take a step back on the playing front, to work within the rules and try and take 2 forward. City, even Chelsea seem unwilling to do that. Chelsea have aggressively exploited loopholes. We have not. A lot of people have spoken about some master plan of other teams doing our bidding and us moving in the dark. That might be true but there’s little evidence for it. We are just complying with the rules pretty much straight down the line.

It’s a good question. We do seem to be fucked tho. So you have to think about PIF and us.