The College Dropout

No they wouldn't. Miggy was the one that was likely to move on. Murphy's fomr in the previous season was pretty good and went under the radar. Most wanetd him as an understudy, not sold.

We struggle against competent teams that look to hit us on the break undoubtedly. This is a fact. The bottom 6 were simply not competent. Wolves and Spurs away aside actually - those were close games. It the lack of quality/belief showed.

Keeping as many young players "in the game" is fair enough imo. 25 in the squad. Allow 2-3 long-term injuries outside of that. 3-5 that need loans for some reason like Hayden. Anymore is too much imo. What's that 33?

The Lyon deals are bogus. Forest got burnt with FFP the year prior. Like everyone else they've learnt their lesson. They won't be scrambling around last minute to sell one of their best players on the cheap to make it work. I would be shocked if that's the case. £20m for Vlad was a masterstroke. Anderson for what is essentially £15m - looked a solid deal then and it's amazing business now.

Most things reported widely have an element of truth imo. I think we've had interest in all of the players we've been consistently linked too. The Elanga links have persisted because the interest has persisted. Other players we like - we'll probably never bid for them. I think the preference for PL experience is probably true but we also seem to hold interest in foreign players too. Even when something is wrong - Barella for example - the fire was that we were in Milan to sign an international Italian midfielder highly-rated, it was the wrong player but there was an element of truth to the rumour. Isak was mentioned numerous times before it got concrete.

We've not done it or look like we will. We've not even loaned a PIF-owned player.

They've rarely been crazily wrong. I refused to believe the early reports last season. The Chelsea hacks require a lot of effort mind. Like our Owners could sell SJP to themselves 30% at a time. Doesn't sound like that's a plan to do anything like that.

I'd take Luiz - that's an easy sale to Saudi next June if needed imo. Sound that out.

Reports in the media tend to have some element of truth in them. Such as our longstanding interest in this lad. Very rarely is the smoke without any fire.

Eh. Team was consistently shit - hard to get excited by any of them. Only Gini & Mitro showed signs of any ability. Thauvin was a disgrace in our shirt.

TBF the reports last season were correct. Each of the 6 clubs named did dodgy deals to become compliant. This year, only 1 club is reportedly close to failing again and they are likely to use the Chelsea hack on the women's team.

If they are ok for this years accounting (which reports suggest they are) they don't need to sell before June 2026. Unless you have issues for June 2025 - if you need PSR headroom, you can wait til next June to sell valuable players for you and get a full season out of them.

None of these are distressed sales. If they need to sell, they'll find a better way than flogging Elanga on the cheap imo.

Nah that was the year prior. Last season - they learnt their lesson and sold some French lads in some dodgy situations - and got a great deal on Anderson and flogged dead wood.

Forest don't sell players that want to keep even if they do have PSR issues.

Did we not get relegated that season and sell all but 1 of those by the following season? At least 2 of those rarely had a good game for us - possible 0 good games. Thought Mbemba was a Pardew era signing.

Chelsea have largely always done this even in the Roman era - it was just semi sensible and done at a younger and cheaper age. They used to keep players on 2 year contracts and keep loaning them out until the fee was decent. If they didn’t re-sign Chelsea would let them rot in the reserves so players kept re-signing. This way they already have that angle covered. That’s what they were doing to Kenedy and Atsu. I think it’s definitely financial. The £60m+ fees don’t make sense. But a lot of the signings 10-40m are likely to rise in value and can be flipped. It’s not fully coherent and there will be some major losses. Nkunku. The Sancho thing was a waste of money and time for example. I think football clubs should have a limit on players on the books over 21 years of age. Anymore than 35 you have to release them and pay their contracts in full.

City hoard via Multi-club ownership but it's not to the degree Chelsea do. This Chelsea stuff is unparalleled. They've always done it uner Roman but not to this extent.

No idea about fee reasonableness tbh

We will need to pay close to what that value would be. £60m odd. Pretty much what we did with Tino.

Never noticed him playing. Haven’t given him the 10 minute scout yet Like that he’s highly rated though. Tall and wins his headers.

Needed a RW more than a back-up LW. I would personally like a more technical option at RW to help us play a slower game. I love Tonali, Hall and Tino but obviously if we were planning to be FFP compliant - signing those 3 premium options - 2 of which the manager was hesitant to play/trust... is a risky approach for the next season. Long-term benefit sure. Alls well that ends well. Barnes was injured most of that season anyway, Gordon was indestructable and excellent. The next season Barnes was great and Gordon was average so we maintained a high quality. Tonali, Tino & Hall are the dogs bolocks. Would I want us to sign 2 young players Howe would be hesitant to trust? I don't know, I hope Howe has learnt something with those two. I've never put Osula in that bracket, Tino & Hall were regarded as A1 talents, reflected in their fee - Osula was never that. This summer I think we should get the RW, AM/ST, the CM, RCB and trade in June if necessary. Give Eddie a team to challenge properly. I wouldn't go Anthonee Robinson over Hall though which I think is a discussion.

What transfers did I ‘get wrong’? The only player we’ve signed that I didn’t rate much prior was Gordon and he’s proved me wrong. (Still don’t rate him that highly). I very rarely have a black and white view of a player. I loved Hall as a player from day one and had confidence he would come good. But I was unsure if it was wise to spend so much money on him if Howe was not going to trust him in the first season l. It’s this thing they call ‘nuance’. I think we have a quality squad but we have little depth. Because we’ve bought quality players for a premium. I think we need to double down and equip the squad with quality so we can requalify for the CL. The last time we spent money - we halfway did it. Spent more than we should so ran into FFP issues but spent less than we needed to give the CL a challenge in the league. Like anyone - I update my views based on new information.

What's so funny?

That's the game. We've had good success on fairly priced PL players like Barnes, Burn, Pope - those deals are hard to land at decent prices. Not players big clubs would've been after in any situation maybe Barnes the exception actually. Botman, Tonali, Bruno, Isak, Hall, Tino, Gordon - all signings other big clubs would've looked at and decided too much money for the risk. We have to continue down this route imo.