The College Dropout

Don't have much of an opinion on Paul Mitchell. Suits talk like a suit. That's fine. Good track record. I was a bit bewildered by why he seemed to change tact in the summer. Truthfully, his reasonings make sense. He was new in position, mid-transfer window, plans already in motion - carry out those plans as best you can. Implement your own by January. He's suggested his plans will align with what got him the job from his experience. It's a logical way to build. A suped-up Brighton model (our wage bill is at least £60m bigger, almost 50% increase) is the best way for us to progress if we aren't going to try and be super clever with FFP. Too early to be worried about him. The personal stuff about his turn of phrase is harsh imo.

For ACLs I always factor 1 whole year as a normal recovery. I've pretty much discounted him being at 100% until next season. This season I hope he comes back and proves his fitness and gets towards 100% of his previous ability or more, But I won't overly judge his performance or his physical recovery until 25/26.

Just plucked random figure. It’s more advantageous FFP wise to move cash around. At least on the books for FFP accountancy.

That would be fine. But they would prefer to do a cash deals I guess. So call it £80m in and £80m out. Maybe more out actually which would scupper the deal. Madueke book value is still like £15m, so letting him go for free is a big accounting loss. There’s rules about how many clubs you can be registered too in one season. Wages might be the bigger issue in terms of cost. Lad would want at least £10m per year. Maybe £12.5m. More than those lads combined.

Isn’t Man City like that? my bigger concern that Yasir treats us like a suit. City are super corporate. But it’s also a bit of a passion project or at least a marquee project. We need Yasir to consider us a marquee or passion project. The suits matter a lot less when that’s the case. If he doesn’t then the suits are everything.

Is there any evidence of this? Even circumstantial? Feels like people are creating a narrative to suit their view. Rather than looking at what we do know and thinking about what makes sense logically behind those facts.

Well it’s an obvious hack. It’s within the rules. And they haven’t done it.

You didn’t answer my question about multi club. That’s an open hack.

You think Abu Dhabi and Roman had friends in British football? I keep repeating it - you can bend the rules. You don’t have to break them. We are reluctant to bend them. Boehly to date, has only bent them. We haven’t used the open door we have to loan Saudi players. We could sell Almiron to Saudi for the same amount as we’ve been offered - and then loan him back for 2 seasons. The 112 charges are bad PR for Abu Dhabi. But the winning speaks so much louder. And that’s breaking rules. We don’t have to go that far. —————- People say ‘the Cartel 6’ but that’s not entirely true. Before Roman sold Chelsea There’s Arsenal, Man U, Liverpool and Spurs. These are the ‘elite’ clubs with Owners in football for economic gain. These were the biggest proponents of ESR in England. They are keen to minimise costs and maximise revenues. Abramovic and Abu Dhabi don’t have those interests as priority. I’ll repeat- Ciry setup their multi club infrastructure at the same time FFP was introduced. FFP Announced in 2009, implemented 2013. AD bought City in 2009, multi club in 2013. It’s a direct circumvention of FFP. They aren’t in the same box as the old money PL clubs. Boehly went multi club within 2 years! What’s stopping PIF going multi club? Even Liverpool think they need to go multi club just to compete. Their wage bill is close to City because most non-first team City staff are not employed by the club. They are employed by city group. Keeping the costs down by probably 8 figures.

Howe is a full time press conference liar. He purposely doesn’t say meaningful things often and then will sometimes lie or at best say things that turn out to be untrue.

spurs until recently have had by far the smallest revenue of all the top 6 clubs and also nowhere near the spend limits. They have by far the lowest wage bill of the top 6. Winning trophies isn’t their aim and they haven’t invested to that level. For them to get into the CL 4 years in a row, finish 2nd, 3rdand get to the CL final is a tremendous achievement. It’s the equivalent of us finishing 3rd and going deep in the CL. They’ve been run tremendously considering there is no desire to invest enough to consistently challenge for trophies. Their aim is CL more years than not. And a profitable and growing revenue club. If we get to Spurs position - we cement ourselves at a level higher because our owners aren’t in it for profit.

Agreed. I agree that we’ve paid premiums on a lot of our transfers. Some have worked out tremendously like Isak, some are questionable like Tonali or Hall but at the time all where premium fees at best and overpayment at worst as was reported at the time. But you can’t use that argument then bid £70m for Guehi. That would’ve been the worst one to date.

A lot of our signings we arguably overpaid *at the time* Most of the English lads have the English PL tax. “Experts” said we overpaid for Isak. That’s a bargain in hindsight. The experts also said the same about Tonali.

Nah I still think we have to sell. Brighton have far lower revenues and are typically nowhere close to their FFP limit. A souped up Brighton that invest everything they can is a good model imo.

This is what I’ve been saying in the PIF thread. If we want to sign proven PL quality and almost guarantee European football for the next 3 years. We need to bend the rules.

I think they have already passed a rule that means this would be banned from this season onwards - selling assets to sister companies. But it wasn’t banned at the time and the deal is FMV so tough titties. Again if there’s the will and enough resources to circumvent FFP, it’s possible. Chelsea prove it time and again.

Ambitious clubs like Villa and us need expensive ticket prices because of FFP. Most of us are happy to leave SJP because of FFP. That’s crazy.

Disagree. Motivation: Best path to actualise stated goals. Interpretation of the rules will go to independent courts. That’s why Leicester won their appeal yesterday. The ruling was that the laws are actually poorly written in areas. And Leicester beat the case. Chelsea have found numerous loopholes. I’m guessing they will continue to find more. - super long contracts (bad idea) - selling infrastructure to themselves - Bullshit FFP transfer swapsie pioneer that we ended up using in a bad way. The first 2 have been closed. But there’s no closing the third. With enough will and resources, these laws can be circumvented to help us. PIF could continually buy players from a random European club for SA league for wild figures with an informal agreement they spend x amount on Newcastle players. There is still nothing blocking us loaning players from Saudi clubs iirc.

Again, we had by far the worst deal from those transfers. The players the other clubs got are either useful players, young with a chance to retain or add value or young enough to be used for another FFP transfer next year or the year after. We should get a Saudi PIF club to sign a random Ligue 1 club player for £45m, then get that club to sign our GK for £22m. Should be enough to cover wages and leave a little in the bank for the Ligue 1 club. In fact - if the actual transfer is already in the clear FFP wise then £20m is his FMV and we should get a Saudi club to buy him for the same figure. The lads book cost is probably more then Fabian Schar or the same amount as Joelintons wages. It’s not an insignificant amount.

All 6 clubs doing those dodgy transfers would’ve been in FFP breach without it. We knew this.

Liverpool and Spurs owners aren’t in it to win the CL or compete with Real Madrid. Neither are Man U’s owners. They are in it to make money.

I don’t think Leicester could challenge the legality of FFP - they signed up for it. At least it wouldn’t impact the points deduction or relegation. We needed Leeds back up with Leicester. There’s 6 PL clubs right up against FFP. We need more.

A points deduction would’ve been better for negative FFP PR/news. Anymore than 3 points would likely send Leicester back down to the Champ where another points deduction would await them.

UEFA rules will remain a massive issue.

Last point - there’s this idea that PIF are doing absolutely everything possible to generate revenue but are being blocked by the slick foils of the PL and the big money 5. And I just don’t believe it. They’ve put up bigger barriers. But the barriers aren’t impregnable if PIF were determined and motivated to circumvent them asap with a bit of nous. But they don’t seem determined to do that atm.