The College Dropout

Most of the decisions that has led to our success were driven by Staveley and husband. you can’t tell everything from the documentary but they seemed present day to day. They had some influence over everything. I give credit for PIF for financing it. But they were so hands off they were not tracking FFP diligently themselves. I don’t see how a suit CEO is going to have the gravitas and mobilising power of Staveley on PIF and the entire club. It’s become a different club and project. Maybe one requiring a slower rebuild. But that would need PIF to change their own demands (maybe we don’t need Europe every season and we focus on developing players and youth).

Already am disappointed. We look set to miss out on a massive window of opportunity. Nobody can name me the successful football clubs with super distant owners. Yet alone one trying to bridge a gap.

I don’t think we have. We paid a premium for most of them. We’ll struggle to double our money on Tino and Hall over the next 12 months. While we signed young players that can develop and improve. The squad was built to compete not to resale. We spent £40m on a 20-yo fullback coming off an ACL. £38m for a 25-yo backup winger. We can tell by their approach to PSR, Staveley came to compete primarily. Evidently the numbers were an afterthought.

None of these would be guaranteed starters for them. Some called Diaby a flop. Rogers is by far the superior player. Tielemans we better than Luiz ever was last season. Villa’s ownership has tried everything they can. It’s not always worked but they’ve exhausted all options. Our ownership say one thing and do another.

I don’t agree. The most important people at a club are the owners and whoever’s baby it is. The ambition, desire and competence of the ownership. I don’t see a hired suit CEO achieving that unless they get incredible buy-in from PIF to move fast and change tact. A hired suit CEO might be transformative in the long-term. If we sell Isak, I think the short/medium term of the club will be entrenched. We’ll sell off the stars of this team. If we are smart we’ll rebuild the team in a smaller manner to this. Except I think it will be harder to mobilise the fanbase in the same way and attract the likes of Tonali and Isak unless some of the infrastructure looks to land and we can sell a bigger dream.

We’ll never be an elite outfit without serious engagement from the ownership. Staveley was great at selling a vision and that’s got us this team with Isak and Tonali. I expect this team to be broken up. Maybe we go again in another 3-4 years with a slow rebuild. If we were going to kick on with this team it was going to be this summer. Won’t begrudge any of them for leaving.

Who? they’ve sold Luiz who they replaced with a £50m player and a free transfer. And a temperamental young striker.

New front 3 for Man U looks tasty on paper

We don't even know who that Boss is

It should never be a Howe call. If it's him or his nephew, we look weak and vulnerable as a club. No wonder we have issues bringing players in.

Eddie's not the boss of the club. I'm talking Levy and Marinakis. Owners, equity holders. Look those men and or those agents in the eyes "this is literally my club and i'm not letting you go".

With the vacuum in leadership I don't think it has been communicated.

Sorry that's defeatist BS. If PIF really wanted too, they would threaten to stop the tap of buying top 6 cast-offs. If PIF were serious in their aims, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place. Becoming a dominant force in European football isn't a small quest like PIF seem to think it is. It's also achievable. I mean, if it wasn't for is - Villa would've went 2 seasons back to back in the CL and continued building. We are actually in their way - they are serious - I don't think PIF are serious. As fans we needed to witness our team qualify for the CL and watch our leadership not build on it for people to see the project for what it is. And if it is what it's looking at. It will still be enjoyable and we should have a good side. But we'll settle in at 7th and 8th unless we hire more geniuses and miracle workers.

But also - it needs to be communicated to him - that it's not or what our terms are. I go back to Kane or MGW transfers. The bosses of those clubs stepped in and said "yeh - no." And they had a verbal agreement and one had a contractual agreement. The owners, stepped in and made things very clear. Where is ours? Quickly too.

This is the thing - we are already lightyears behind. We need to leverage unfair advantages to just catch up. We are letting other clubs extend their leads. This is why I don't believe in "waiting" for the womens team to increase in value, waiting on sponsorships etc. If we are serious about being number 1 we need to take advantage of everything we can now, so we can jump to the next level, at the next level we can pull different levers. I've banged on this all year and now more people are sharing the same opinion i'm going to slow down. Fundamentally - it doesn't look like it's on the agenda and at this rate we'll never catch the top teams.

For me nothing beats a GK that just comes out and grabs it. Nothing. Barnes often play with 4 CBs and Raya is still one of the most proactive at crosses. And we are a team that does a lot of actual defending. More than Arsenal at least.

Memories of Pickford booting it long to wingers and attackers that either went astray or were lost every single time in the euros final. And he didn’t stop. It wasn’t working and he kept doing it. Infuriating.

Raya doesn’t have the frame but I love how he commands the area.

Our strength at defensive set pieces and cornerstone of our side. Pope is massive for that. Pope has such great presence. For me that still means a lot. It’s going out the modern game. Of the top teams only Courtois, Donnarumma, Alisson, Neuer still have that. They all have goalkeeper builds without seeing much of him I liked Mamadarshvelli just due to his size and frame I also like my centrebacks to win their headers over some nice passing but I can concede that’s not the modern way

£4m loan fee with an option is good business. I assume the remaining fee would be £8m or £12m which isn’t crazy either.

You can sell the team based on potential. We aren’t waiting. We just ain’t doing it.

The 115 charges is all down to dodgy goings on from the owners. Obviously the owners are also bleeding the PL in legal fees and have secured a couple major wins in that battle. And they setup the multi club model for City. Very hands on where it matters.

The people doing the business are Eddie's people - of course he thinks that. A lot of us had these fears about our approach for good reason

Apart from maybe Liverpool - are there any succesful elite clubs with such distant ownership? Doesn't have to be the largest shareholder either.

Everything about the heading looks brilliant. The leap, the hang time. The angles. That's where I said Carroll. He's got way better mobility though.