The College Dropout

Jacob Murphy has 11 PL goal contributions in January. Howe deserves tremendous credit for getting the most out of the likes of Murphy and Burn. 2 players if sold, i'm not convinced go to top half PL sides, Murphy - not a PL side at all. I thought Tonali would come good... but I didn't expect him to be this good. So again, I give him credit for getting the most out of him. This is by far... the best central midfield pair i've seen us have. It has everything.

Always gave his best. Best of luck lad.

I love a defensive duo that win their aerial duels

Maybe so. But your team mates will rightfully use that as leverage in their own negotiations.

Villa are doing well to keep collecting points but their performances haven’t been nearly as good as last season in the league. They’ll play a minimum of 4 CL games this year. I fancy them to go deep

£8m UK? Take it. And aye I think we take that to the market.

It wasn’t him it was a Brit.

How many assists now? He’s given us that but if quality in the final third.

The level he has reached is incredible.

Remember when they said we overpaid?

Probably but we are a club that will have to gamble on players that need some development eg Lewis Hall and Minteh

Free transfers is also fine if you don’t care about resale and it doesn’t break the wage structure. Or it’s a means to an end.

He's a proven PL player though. Not even linked with a loan. I agree the injuries are offputting. But potentially the salary demands are also offputting.

You started the nitpicking with a statement that isn't true. Leading to more nitpicking. 80's summary and the KDB illustration covers it well enough.

Capology is crap. But rumoured wages tend to be close to the truth. The fact there are rumours Kelly might leave make me think he doesn't earn £150k. Who is going to pay him £150k and a fee? The fact there are no rumours for Targett make me believe there are more truth to the 100k rumours.

It's great for bigger clubs. The best team at free transfers is Real Madrid. Don't have to negotiate with clubs, get players in their prime years. Pay them the big bucks. Happy to let them go for free at the end of the contract anyway. Real Madrid are the biggest contract bullies in the sport.

Yeh it is - wages are still a cost. This doesn't happen. Joelinton and Miggy still have a amortisation cost. As does Bruno and the rest - it's just much less. For Bruno it's likely his cost now is similar to the season he signed because his wages have increased 75-100%. The likes of Trippier, Bruno and Joelinton - while their amortisation has decreased, they are significant wage contributors. Likely 3 of our highest earners along with Gordon, Isak, Tonali..... and Kelly. Each of these will earn a minimum of £5m per year. Aint nothing more important than the mula.

There's also not a lot of transparency in football about wages and transfer fees which doesn't help.

Yep this is an example for KDB. Extending contracts reduces the amortisation but that is often offset by increased wages. Most of our big signings are on their first NUFC contract or have likely doubled their wages like Bruno and Gordon. Joelinton likely to have a smaller wage bump and had already amortised most of his fee iirc. Which is why if we had a £40m buyer for Big Joe, I would've taken it. A lot of profit in that. Similar amount maybe to selling Anderson (who tbh I never rated but looks a proper player now). Big Joe is still obviously the better player but he is at his maximum transfer value, his sell-on value is only going to decrease and his bigger wages are a hurdle to a sale. Economically it's better to move on the likes of Big Joe and keep your Anderson's. BUT big Joe is playing a big role in our CL push and is currently a better player so... yeh we're fucked one way or the other however you look at these things.

Roman Kemp did some Euros content with Rio. He was awful. Doesn't know ball at all.I know it's just presenting but don't like him and his cheeky chappy persona. And another nepo kid

He is a very decent player but it’s just funny how that’s worded. Chelsea aside who from the troubled 6 has great options in a fire sale?

This screams Anthony Elanga

Nobody else (bar 3 or 4) wants to sustain significant losses though. The PL is the cartel. The clubs want to rake in the TV money and minimise costs. PSR helps to minimise costs. It's only ever going to be a few clubs at a time that want to invest heavily for a sustained period of time to grow. The more clubs are allowed to invest and grow, the more other clubs have to spend to keep up. The PL doesn't want clubs coming up and doing a Forest, spending £200m on seasoned pro's to keep in the league. That's awful. It makes the other 14 more likely to be relegated.

That would put him on crazy wages no? £110k+ is crazy for Lloyd Kelly. We get it, free transfer but that does distort the wage structure. Hall will be wanting a new contract soon, he'll look at Kelly and say he needs to be paid more. Schar & Burn probably earn less. I worried for Villa when they did that with Tielemans & Kamara. But Kamara was a key player and Tielemans effectively replaced the player who would want the bigger contract (Douglas Luiz) to become a key player. Kelly isn't going to become a key player for us.

Get to 10m and they can have him. Maybe even £8-9m. Covers the amortisation for a 30-40m transfer