The College Dropout

Elanga was purchased for £15m 12 months ago no? Maybe 24 months ago. To a club we would easily beat to the transfer. Trying to buy him for £50m in the summer isn’t indicative of savvy transfer market operators. Rutter, Gordon & Minteh were all purchased from distressed sellers. 2 of them were close to leaving for more money than they eventually went for earlier.

It’s weird for everything to be ultimately Ashley’s fault when he was owner. But PIF don’t have ultimate responsibility now.

Owners hire leadership/CEO for a specific remit and approach though. The owners decide whether to pursue growth, stabilise, need short term success or take a longer view. and that trickles through to every layer. If the board say we need a level of instant success, Eales hires a manager and DOF under the same remit.

Those sponsorships will need to push the limit of FMV. Those will only come from PIF/Saudi companies which is exploiting financial loopholes. The sustainable model means selling our best players and not signing the likes of Barnes, Guehi. Sell Joelinton. Sell Bruno. Trippier. Right wage control. Accept the odd 10th place finish as we develop our players.

It largely depends on what you define as ‘industry specific knowledge’. In recent windows the only (and massive) issue Chelsea have with PSR is that the turnover of players and coaching staff is too high. Players won’t retain or increase value if they don’t play or they play badly. Having to continually reshuffle squad and coach means that won’t happen. And the size of the fees are still often mad. But from a business perspective they’ve understood PSR well in recent windows. - young players on low wages are most likely to maintain and increase in value. - multi club model allows you to spread costs and risk to other less important clubs - pioneered the long wages hack (aye industry knowledge makes that a bad move) - Pioneered the dodgy PSR sale with other PSR hit clubs - Selling assets to themselves - Aggressively selling youth products - now don’t seem willing to offer crazy wages anymore Chelsea understand PSR just fine. It’s the football they don’t understand. I can see what Chelsea are trying to do, they are just doing way too much of it. Individual player valuations can vary from footballing man to another. Cool. But broad guidelines are… broadly true. Marc Guehi value is £45-75m. Big gap. But most would agree he’s close to the peak of his value due to age, demonstrable ability, PL experience, existing club position, length of contractand international recognition these are all common guidelines. Is Bruno G worth £60m or £100m? Don’t know but that’s probably the range. Using the same factors. Similarly he’s most definitely at the peak of his value. It can hold for another 12 months imo but by 28 most would agree his value will start to decline.

PIF Thread Going to try and separate my thoughts from what I consider to be facts (Rafa style). Fact PIF as owners have not been able to increase our revenue inline with expenses + amortisation enough for us to keep our best players and significantly invest in the transfer market again. It’s their primary responsibility because it’s only possible to spend what we spend consistently if we use our owners wealth and power to inflate or revenue or circumvent costs. Blaming Eales and co. is like blaming Mort and Lambeezy for Ashley. Opinion We also don’t seem to have a coherent strategy to get us there revenue wise. We haven’t seen it. PIF have had almost 3 years to grapple with the FFP rules - they haven’t tried hard to exploit loopholes - we were even late to the party with the patsy transfers which is why we got the worst deal. The lack of update on stadium plans is the worst thing. The key thing I’m looking for from PIF for the rest of the calendar year is a coherent strategy. If we are going to try and keep our star players and sign £70m CBs - we need to increase our revenue sharply. Rename SJP for 3 years, sponsors everywhere, whatever. If we need to build more naturally - we should stop making top 4 like signings and concentrate on signing wonderkids, under appreciated assets and cheaper senior pros. RB Are the example, Dortmund, Spurs in the Jol, Redknapp years, even Brighton. Sell players at peak value, sign players with potential to increase in value, tight wage control. Let the fans know that we might have some up and down years as we sell star players, not every replacement will work. And align the employees. I have a creeping feeling that the owners are demanding but not savvy. They’ve opened their wallet but I feel (could be wrong) the good (and bad) work has been done by Staveley and co. Maybe we aren’t a priority. Abu Dhabi’s entire footballing operation is centred on Man City (City Group). The entire operation is slick and geared towards Man City domination. To get City to the top they most likely broke rules, won’t cooperate with governing bodies and have taken them to court. PIF are signing Ivan Toney for Al-Alhi. They’ve leveraged the Saudi League relationship once in 2 years. There’s a mismatch of action and expectation here. What’s the genuine ambition? Do we have a realistic plan to get there? From the outside it’s confusing. Eddie / Eales / Mitchell - what have they been told by the ownership? Feels like big demands without the resources to achieve them. Is that why Freedman knocked us back?

Attempting to judge if selling Minteh was a good decision based on a game by game analysis of his performances is stupidity. Minteh is 20 years old with masses of potential and ability to add value today. That’s always been the issue here. We’ve sold someone who has potential to be worth twice what we sold him for in 2-3 years. And he would add value to the playing team. When we sold Carroll, Liverpool were desperate buyers. In terms of the actual fee We knew we got a premium. He wasn’t worth £35m at the time - Liverpool were the only club in the world that would pay close to that. And it would be likely he would never be worth the £35m. This is different. We already know we had a better offer. The buying club hopes/expects to sell him for more than they bought him for. It’s like buying Olise or Eze 4 years ago for £8m then acting like it’s great business to sell them for £30m a year or two later. When they’ve got a real possibility of being worth £60m in another 1 or 2 years of development. Thats bad business. Further compounded by the fact he plays in our weakest outfield position and he would be pushing to start. The mess we got ourselves in meant we had to sell him aye. That will never change. But having to sell our brightest young prospect, who the club expect to go onto bigger and better things then £30m at Brighton will always be one of the first big red flags of the PIF era. In retrospect I wish we sold him to a PIF Saudi team. The highest bid was from Lille at around £40m, that’s FMV. Get him back on loan for 2 seasons and see how he develops. As a fan of the boy. I think he’s made a positive start. Looks a bit raw. But presses well. Uses his right foot more than I anticipated. He took a lovely touch with his right foot to setup his shot before the equaliser. He’s a real handful for fullbacks. Brighton get him 1v1 VERY regularly. It’s clearly a tactic to prioritise a particular winger and wing play in general. Mitoma had lots of the ball against Arsenal, Minteh had loads of the ball against Man U. The quality of his final ball is very good. Put in some lush crosses from open play and set pieces. Shown some good movement. You can tell he still has room to grow physically. A little stronger, faster. He’s given Dalot and Timber tough matches and had some joy against both but ultimately they had the upper hand. So he should know he has got a way to go. He looks to be in a fantastic setup. He’s getting 70+ minutes a week in the PL, in an attacking side who look to get him the ball 1v1, modest expectations. Just 20 man.

I disagree that PSR requires specialist footballing knowledge. It’s just accounting. It’s business more than anything. That’s on the ownership and the CEO more than anyone else. If anything football people (without a finance or business school background) might struggle to understand it. When people say selling x player for £50m pays for 5 £50m signings on 5 year deals. Thats technically true for one year but shows a naive understanding of the rules. You then need to have another £50m the next season and wages for 5 players in both seasons. I don’t think anyone knew how serious the ramifications would be so that’s a legitimate excuse of sorts. They went straight for points deductions. Not fines or transfer bans.

This is pure conjecture from me. But it feels like we have aggressive playing targets, need to comply with FFP but PIF aren’t trying to exploit loopholes. Which is a bit of an impossible task. But it would explain our transfer windows. I disagree about promoting Nickson or removing the DOF. We need strong leadership and a strategy that aligns the owners expectations, actions and everyone else follows. Tell Howe he doesn’t need European football every season but he does need to develop players and players at peak value will be sold. If he doesn’t like it let him go. If we want £70m CBs at peak value. Want to keep our stars. PIF need to exploit FFP loopholes aggressively. also don’t like this idea that it’s one player or nothing. Bellamy and Robert were second choices. Transformative signings. Leandro Trossard and Jorginho were second choices. They’ve been very good for Arsenal.

Back off ban. the squad building is a mess. I’m pointing the finger at PIF for not setting clear direction and strategy. I still go back to last summers spending spree for which I’ll blame on Staveley and Mehrdad as acting owners. It didn’t make that much sense at the time but knowing what we know now - it was a shitshow strategically. An over budget window prioritising some of the wrong positions, with the wrong profile, some Howe style, some Ashworth style. Ended up not following any approach. In their defence - if we had a full Eddie window and a bit of luck, we finish top 5. If we had a full Ashworth window, we are much better positioned for FFP/PSR. Didnt make the hard decisions in January. June was a mess. The rest of the window was worse. I’ve got some questions over Eddie’s influence over transfers. His preference for PL experience is incompatible with our FFP position. But I also think he’s been set aggressive targets so it makes sense he wants low risk signings. Men with PL experience. Not foreign boys with potential. But I believe in his ability to over achieve on the pitch. And that’s the saving grace. As well as having some super talented players.

You can’t look at the transfer window in isolation from financial regulations. It’s like being disappointed your dad only get you a bicycle for Christmas and ignoring the fact he’s lost his job. We’ve not played the Miggy situation smartly. He’s every right to sit on his contract that the new regime gave him. We could do a madness and force him out but that’s ugly. And it’s a self made problem.

The rest of the PL don’t want more super clubs. Every other club outside the top 6 has been relegated in the PL era (except Everton, and City have been relegated). And unless they get super owners - every other club can be relegated. The other clubs don’t want that. They don’t want us or Villa to have rich owners that can spend. Because of FFP 14 clubs can get relegated. They don’t want that number to keep decreasing. ATM we could do a Leicester and wage bill ourselves into a FFP hole and get relegated. Once we get our revenues £400m+ we’ll become untouchable even in dire times. They don’t want that to happen for us or to Villa or anyone else.

Douglas has no clue about the contract.

Would love a full link to that - not behind the paywall. I can’t find it now but there were reports in May/Early June that we needed 40-60m net revenue in accounting terms to be compliant with FFP for the season. Sky also said we were 1 of 6 clubs that needed to sell players to be FFP compliant. I refused to believe it at the time but it was true. This was a few weeks before the Minteh rumours went into overdrive and the random links to other FFP 6 club players.

@et tu brute I’m done mate. I’ve explained that we won’t know the financials relating to FFP until next June. Myself and others have explained that you can use financials from previous years, public information about revenue streams and FMV to ball park the key revenue/expenses to a decent degree. Swiss Ramble did it and were pretty accurate. We’ll know more when last years financials are released next year. So let’s not discuss it any further between us.

There was another big name CB at that agency we could be linked too.

Well not know until next June. we literally do have a clue about the clubs finances though. And football finances in general. We don’t know everything but we know enough to have semi informed discussions between fans. But That’s perfectly fine. We can stop discussing. The question was asked about which targets we prefer. Some people’s answer is dependent on how much we can spend on a RW as a result and FFP will be the limiting factor on that. So we are talking about FFP. You can ignore the FFP chat if you like. I like discussing ideas but we’ve had the same long FFP discussions in numerous threads. The original FFP point about Guehi is relevant to the thread.

Your first point is true, but people only deal with the information we know. And what we know doesn't sound great. Nobody is acting like they are 100% on the money with FFP. The bolded - again based on what we know. They may leave us needing A LOT of money come next June because that's what they did last summer. If we needed to generate £60m of sales, how would we do it again? I don't think the club would put us in quite the same position again without a better plan. But they might!

Agreed. We won't have to sell until next June though (if we do need to sell). I'm with you, I think we need to sign the "next" guys. Take a chance on wonderkids. Riskier transfers like Bruno & Isak. Even Gordon we bet on potential. I don't see how Guehi value could get much higher. Spurs got to the top by buying and selling the likes of Modric, Bale, Berbatov, Walker, Eriksen etc. Some big fees and reputations but nothing like this Guehi move in terms of fee or wages. I'm hoping we have a revenue hack otw. Because I don't get how this approach reconciles with our FFP position.

Well not know until next June tbf. I expect us to be much more conservative with FFP this season because this past June was a circus. BUT.. planning for sales before the next deadline in May/June is viable. We dont have to adhere come September. But we shouldn’t put ourselves in such a big hole unless we have more viable plans (planning to sell Lascelles for decent money is not a viable plan imo).

This might sound shady. Not intentional. Just sharing the info

Interesting. They’ve also got AG, Miley, Lascelles and Wilson. Hayden too. Among hundreds of others.

I promise this is the last time I mention it. You can’t mention the Anderson deal without mentioning the GK deal. Thats another £6-8m we’ve added to costs for the next financial year btw.

Amortisation doesn’t ’drop off’ until a players contract runs out or they are sold. So we fully amortised ASM and Wood in last years accounts when they were sold. Trippier and Burn extended their contracts last season so the amortisation saved should partly be reflected in last seasons accounts which we recorded mammoth losses until the end of June. And those are relatively small fees/amortisation costs. Barnes, Isak, Tonali, Botman, Gordon, Livra + Hall are all on their original contracts and will carry their full amortisation costs. Joelinton amortisation will be massively reduced but his wages have massively increased which offsets some of the gains. Ditto Bruno. The c300m is from Eales himself. We did £250m in the last published accounts. Last season will be c300m and with the lack fo European football or significant additional revenues we’ll do similar this season. Can a mod sticky the image in a thread please? Lots of people don’t understand how it works.

Sorry I was talking about a RW. Hypothetical. My position is if we can spend £60m on Guehi and get our top target at RW - it’s doesn’t matter how much cheaper Thiaw is. If we can splash the cash who cares right? doubt that’s the case though.