The College Dropout

The quality in the PL mid pack is being gutted by the top 6. It’s a shame. (we are in danger of being left behind - these lot are building super teams)

True. But it’s not like they are signing supposed world beaters and suddenly y their careers go off track like Alexis Sanchez or Torres. Tosin could’ve joined us. He would’ve been in England contention - maybe. But has he really lost out?

This forum is very black and white - obviously. Amanda made some mistakes and suboptimal moves. This is one of them. She’s not the only one mind and a big part of it is bad luck. Without the injuries in his final season, does Anderson kick on earlier? At the very least he increases his value. She also had a lot of successes. Major ones. All of her successes directly led to 2 CL positions and a cup within 4 years of the takeover. Amanda was a massive net positive for Newcastle United. Massive. She is missed by me. There criticism to take and be shared on this - fair. It makes her human. She did a wonderful Job.

Name them. If they’re good enough they either play or move on and find form. If they aren’t, they sit and collect a wedge they can’t justify. I would say maybe Nkunku but injuries have been a massive factor too. He was on the up in his career.

They ain’t taking a hit.

Dont have issue with the players. Only a few of them really lose out massively - your Nkunku’s and even then he’s made a massive wedge. Like whose career is fucked because of Chelsea? but it doesn’t make sense from a squad building. 2 first teams doesn’t really work in real life.

Real Madrid wouldn’t even spend £60m for someone to sit on the bench at 23. It’s not sensible squad building.

I agree that buying Chelsea players is an option. They will go into next season with crazy squad depth no matter what though. JP is fully an Nkunku replacement. That’s mad. I do wonder if Maresca will continue with the full rotation in Europe and cups. They could probably do that in the group stage and get play offs in the CL.

I think like a sensible top club - they are doing the rebuild with key older players in situ. I don't think Bradley or Quansah are good enough to become VDV or Trent replacements. Neither is Guehi. Guehi is the Konate replacement. VDV replacement is to be determined. If there was a good fee out there for Joe Gomez, they would sell him imo. Liverpool's build is RM-like. Unless there's standouts, youth players are for squad roles. There's less "play through mistakes" squad development as a starter. You get minutes as a squad player. Or you go on loan/sold and try to come back as a starter. It's a shame the likes of Curtis Jones are getting England starts while being rotation players for Liverpool. Really good squad management from them unfortunately.

TBF it's in his job description to turn up to training

Nope. They just don’t want to keep losing money and PSR is a way for them to limit their spending. It’s only Villa and Chelsea who seem determined to invest at a crazy rate for a sustained period of time. We don’t. Forest have slowed down.

Doesn't take much for Chelsea players to get England caps mind. Chalobah has one.

The buyback on Quansah is hefty-mind. Think they've put it in as an anti-Palmer measure, but not in the Real Madrid way. RM typically sell at a fair price, then has a good buyback or % clause on further transfers. Liverpool has secured a good price, so their buyback is substantial. Guehi is the Konate replacement, it's just a case of bringing it forward if it suits. They like a youngster for the Quansah role - I don't think that fits the win now narrative previously discussed. It's just a continuation of what they wanted with Quansah - it's just that he wanted out.

Ain’t that fussed. Good player. Unlikely to be transformational. A lot of money. Would’ve been happy with him but there’s plenty more fish in the sea. On to the next one.

By June 30th? Of course. It became apparent Minteh was going to be sold in the last week or two. Think he rejected Lyon at a higher price. Anderson was later and Vlad later still. But all before 30th June. We dealt with the PSR issue at the very last. Which is why we made such rushed and bad deals. Pretty much every other team had done the bulk of their business prior. Forst sold £50m worth of player to Lyon. Villa did their business earlier, Chelsea, Everton, Leicester etc. or at last the transfers were widely reported.

How? The idea was that they would be forced to sell some type of prized assets to just become PSR compliant. And they wouldn’t have money to plug gaps in the squad. Thats not going to happen because their owners have been wily with PSR.

The rumour is they would fall foul of PSR if not for the sale. You would assume any sale would give them PSR cover and a bit of financial headroom. Even excluding the loan players - Villa have a deep squad. They might want to trade to fill in a few gaps but I was hoping not qualifying for the CL would make them significantly weaker like it did us.

That is the consensus.

Be surprised if they were going to sell anyone. There would’ve been stronger rumours by now - no? But aye today will confirm it. Be interesting to know the shape of the sale. There were rumours the women’s team would be sold over 3 years. Might take weeks for that to come out. Assuming nobody will be sold. That would also mean nobody would need to be sold before June 2026 too - at the worst. Overall I’ve been impressed with how Villa have been able to navigate FFP/PSR.

That’s the theory. But the best transfers in the PL are almost always for players bought from abroad. Even the most expensive PL to PL transfers are sketchy. Later in the Window is best for foreign signings imo. Less options to sell for the selling club.

We are also choosing super obvious targets that will have PL competition at competitive prices.

Nobody else really cares. Chelsea and Villa are spending lots of money. Losing lots of money year on year. And neither team will win the league.

It’s in the rules that we can buy non footballing assets - doesn’t impact PSR - and then sell it. Does impact PSR positively. Car parks, hotels, absolutely anything. We can sell it. We can even buy it - to sell it. I ask you - what is stopping the club from doing that? Youre talking about one particular asset. A bit of imagination would lead you to other alternatives. Even in your example. We could sell it - then buy it back (no impact to PSR). Re-sell it. It’s just moving assets around.

I agree with this fully tbh. But I’m cheering our team on and hoping we can get even better - a team backed by mega tories and a state. It’s super ugly. Personally if I hated it enough - I would walk away from the club. The game has absolutely gone.

Think Delap was value and opportunity led. Similar to Tino, Pope, Trippier, Barnes and others. Probably Trafford too. Hall too - he fit the position but was probably not ideal age wise for the circumstances but it was then or never. So we did it.