The College Dropout

Those guys haven’t missed so far. I hope PIF give them leeway. I expect them too as well. I think the summer will show its value in the years to come. Even with some of the U18s signings. We’re building. This season always had the potential to be a little sticky.

And also. Qualifying has become easy. What tournament did England fail to qualify for? Euro 2008? That Croatia game was a moment. As was the beckham equaliser. Or the 5–1 in Germany. But these days the jeopardy is gone.

There’s so much football and football content (I also play FPL) that I take international football as a bit of a football break outside of major tournaments. Like I might watch a qualifier if it’s on. But I’d rather let my wife watch whatever because I know I’ll want to watch 2-4 league games the next weekend. I don’t have the energy for it.

Yeh it's a good article. If our intensity is off, everything is off.

It’s not helpful for us. But It is what it is.

I think Liverpool owners don’t care about winning titles. Just being competitive. They want the money.

If he’s meant to be rotating with Joe and Bruno…. Why do they never rotate?

Burn barely got a kick at CB at Brighton iirc. Or at least he seemed to be behind Webster and Dunk and others. The approach to CB play we have is to aggressively challenge attackers when they come deep. Make sure they don’t turn. Foul them if you have too. He runs out. Then runs straight back as Ferguson scores under no pressure at all. That’s literally not the approach.

Not being in Europe will be massive for Spurs. As is not being in the CL for Liverpool.

He'll play what he thinks is his strongest team against Brentford and whatever he thinks is the strongest team against Milan. If he only starts one of Isak & Wilson - the other will start Milan. He'll not start anyone for rotation purposes. We need a win and some momentum more than fresh legs and minds. If the XI starts well and comfortably beats Brentford at least 10 of those will start against Milan if fit. I agree. Only way we see this is if we need a goal.

But if you're giving stars new contracts then the amortization is spread even further which should help. If we give Bruno a new contract - aye you have to account for the higher wages but you also spread the remaining cost even further. And in reality, if you're maximising your FFP numbers every year - you are making massive cash losses in real terms. As in you sell an academy player for £100m so you spend £160m in fees plus £20m per year in wages. It's only us, Chelsea and maybe Villa that are trying to maximise what they can spend under FFP. Liverpool will sell Mo Salah for £150m and buy £150m worth of players because their owners are operating in the real world of operational profit. M PIF with all their infrastructure investment that doesn't contribute to FFP - will be losing millions on millions per year as long as they own us. Todd has 2bn credit line for Chelsea and zany growth plans.

Trippier has done nothing to be dropped for really. But Livra is such a different player. A runner and dribbler. I'd like for him to be an option at some point this season and not just back-up. Keep the opposition guessing regarding our game plan. Not for Brentford - obvs. I'd like to see 4-2-3-1 from the off. Isak, Wilson, Gordon, Barnes. I expect 433 with maybe 1 change in midfield or attack. Longstaff and/or Wilson most likely. If everyone comes back fit.

He hasn't. But I don't understand why they change profile when they go down their list. Especially in midfield. ETH needs someone at 6 to progress the ball. Is that Amrabat's game? Mount seems an opportunity signing and they may as well play him RW because Antony lad must join the other bad egg in exile.

I don't think they were especially brilliant. They did what they always want to do. We just did nothing to stop it. Tactically we got it wrong so they could do what they intended with relative ease. And it's a good way of playing and they have talented players.

Look how vertical brightons lines are and how horizontal ours are. The Brighton middle 4 high and close together. The attacking 4. High and close together. They got the ball to that front 4 up against our defence so easily.

I agree with this. Under pressure he would just aimlessly chip it into space / nobody. But Henderson did the same thing and he may have played the deepest CM role at times. Although again I mostly remember him at RCM putting in crap cross after crap cross.

Yes I think i get what you're saying. You typically sign players that have potential good resale value on 4-5 year contracts so the cost is spread over 4-5 years. But you only benefit from sales for 3 years. So if you speculate the player sales to the max. You either need to keep selling players to afford it. Or your spending catches up to you and you can't manoeuvre how you want. I guess the hope is other revenue increases (as it has done for the last 30 years) in line with your spending (which it hasn't for Wolves and Leicester). Fortunately for us - we are owned by PIF so we'll keep getting padded-out commercial deals as far as we can to sustain spending. All the while trying to build our own player sale factory with the academy and other signings. FFP doesn't include an academy and such. Yet.

I don't think he considered ASM on Bruno's level. But he was rated. Close to the way I think he rates Barnes. If you read his words, we needed to sell someone for £20m+. It's either him or Callum Wilson. I think even Almiron for 25m would've raised more objections about fair value than the club wanted.

It's always dynamic. You sign a new commercial deal it changes. Whenever a player signs a contract extension it changes. And a lot of commercial income is performance related. Both prize money and sponsorships.

Eddie was really keen on ASM too. But he had to sell ASM and ASM needed replacing. I agree he really likes Barnes too. But he also really likes Gordon at LW. IIRC all of Gordon's starts have been at LW. Almiron might lose his shirt and Gordon moves over but in an ideal setup, he has inverted wingers. I'm just making evidence-based observations. --- Asked why Saint-Maximin was set to leave, Howe said: ‘With Financial Fair Play, you sort of have to trade otherwise, for us, this summer, we would be stuck in a position where we couldn’t recruit players the other way. That’s how Financial Fair Play works and we understand that. ‘Financial Fair Play forced that to a degree. We could make a stance not to sell Maxi, but then we’d be in a position where we couldn’t recruit Sandro (Tonali) or any other player, so our hands would have been tied. We knew this summer, the likelihood is we’d have to sell a player to trade, and that looks like it will happen. Sometimes these things have to happen for club to grow. ‘Maxi is a top player and we definitely don’t want to lose him. We want to strengthen the group, but sometimes these things happen and we have to accept that. -- Some said at this time that this was some level of kidology. But I think Howe was being genuine here.

This is a good point - although Botman started the second and third league games iirc and the others were mid-season signings, one from abroad. And Tonali has come straight in, despite only being 23 and from a different league and country, doesn't even speak English. Barnes personally - had a good season last season. 25 years old, 150+ PL appearances, joined in the summer. But plans always change. It's just more the fact he's not tried both Gordon & Barnes for any significant length of time. Could totally be wrong.

Btw I don't think Barnes is or ASM was considered as cover or backup. Rather a first-team option but not one that is automatically in the teamsheet if fit. Lascelles is cover, Targett has become cover, Anderson was cover last season. Only injuries or resting others would mean they started. Semantics I know but it's either that or do some actual work. Some of the chat when Barnes signed was that he was a massive upgrade on ASM who is everything Howe wants in his system and he would come in and nail down that LW spot somewhat in the manner Tonali has come in and basically taken Longstaff's spot. So far that has not happened and he's more or less getting the same minutes ASM was getting when the preferred LW was playing well enough. Not that he couldn't win that spot back - Barnes can.

Is it not just the interviewer audio that is fake? The response from ETH will be real. You could do this 10 years ago.

Aye. So Barnes was 44m on a 5 year deal. That's £8.8m booked this year and say another £5m in wages. £13.8 on the FFP books for this season. ASM was sold for 27m. And let's say he earned £3m a year. That's £30m freed up to the book for this season if we want to use it. Subtract the difference for this season: We have £16.2m we could still spend this summer if we wanted too. Let's say Livramento is 38m on 5-year deal. 7.6m this year on the books. 3m salary. 10.6 total on the FFP books this season. That single ASM sale has covered both transfer costs this season from an FFP perspective. Obviously, future years need to be accounted for but you hope we get greater commercial revenue, prize money and can continue generating income player sales.

I think we saw it a little bit against Brighton? We sold ASM who featured in 80% of matches he was fit for. And started maybe 20-25% of matches he was fit for. So he needed replacing. And he's been replaced with someone arguably more suited to the system.