The College Dropout

Championship is not a bad division at all. It’s the level of the PL it’s too high. It’s one reason why the likes of us and Villa struggle to compete on multiple fronts.

Agree with what you’ve said. We’ve certainly been fortunate to catch Man U and Spurs at low ebbs.

I expect we’ll need to sell to create headroom. Im a broken record but we need £30m-50m worth of dodgy deals to avoid that.

Everyone’s never always fit though. I don’t want the couple starters playing any minutes. If we qualified this season we would be playing dubs trippier Schar burn Kelly willock longstaff/Tonali Joelinton (and now Miley) And your front 3. That’s too many first teamers imo. One of my biggest concerns is we aren’t allowed to build a squad that can compete in Europe and the league. For the CL or Europa you just take it but it’s BS.

Debt isn’t a massive issue for FFP (minus the new interest stuff). They were paying Ben Godfrey obscene amounts of money among others.

No FFP issues will remain for a few years. Wages too high, revenue too low.

I get from his perspective he needs some level of security. But we should just run it down.

The majority of academy talents are from the catchment area though. Things are more global but the catchment is still important. And players that are local tend to be more loyal to the club. Sancho and Angel left Manchester v. young and not for big fees. with City - good money/performances from Foden, Harwood Bellis, Palmer - local lads. The biggest successes for Man U in terms of fees and performance have been Northerners or Scotland/Wales/Ireland. Becks is an anomaly. Under Ashley we would lose our best talents to Liverpool and Everton. Geography does matter. Agreed it’s a challenge. If you’re a talented youngster from London you will have a lot of choice between genuinely fantastic academies between London and Newcastle. The north of England and Scotland has to be the focus and the competition is tough. Again, Manchester and Liverpool as cities and surrounding suburbs are probably the most fertile areas. it’s going to be tough but at least we can throw money here.

Great shout. This is bang on the money. A powerhouse but a baller too.

Part of the reason we are conceding less shots is the calm and control Dubs brings in general play. I love Pope and never rated Dubs particularly highly.

Agreed

I would want Pope to start against Arsenal in the 2nd leg if fit. I thought Dubs struggled with the aerial balls. Flapped at a few. Punched a few under no pressure. But generally I wouldn’t expect Pooe to waltz back into the start. Dubs has brought something to the general play and if we aren’t conceding a lot of shots or crosses… Dubs might keep the shirt. If we aren’t getting a fee for Dubs we shouldn’t let him go.

Always thought Anguissa was a baller.

Agreed it makes too much sense that it won’t happen.

If we could spend and build a squad for it I would love it. Atm we would struggle to put out a proper second string team. The additional games would kill our league form. I would love to win it. It’s just that it would ruin the league form imo.

It's only the Conference League mind. For a club tight against FFP and a shallow squad - it's more trouble than it's worth IMO. If we plan to sign a bunch of (cheapish) kids then it's fine. Europa League without CL dropouts is immensely winnable and a route to CL so that's great.

My point is - all the bigger London clubs have an advantage because of the tremendous depth of talent. Take the areas i've highlighted, take the current ability of the top 25 players, you could name 50 Londoners (and close) of equal ability or better. I don't know how but there's a compounding effect happening in youth football in London - I think it's the competition and density. The North-East and Scotland aren't producing nearly as much quality. Talent to selling fee ratio for Chelsea is actually bad. They sold Livramento for £5m and Hall for £30m. Guehi played a season and a half in the Championship, £20m seemed a lot at the time but he's easily worth 2.5x now. The players they sell for bigger fees (Maatsen, Gallagher, Mount etc.) all played regular CL football. Compared to London, Greater Manchester, midlands - the NE currently seems to produce far less quality players and it's a disadvantage for us. London is arguably the best city in Europe for producing talent, that's an advantage for 3 of the top 6, it has to be.- It's something i'm hoping PIF's investment can help with as investment might be an issue.

No you can just look at the latest accounts and summaries by the looks of Kieran Maguire. Man City, Spurs, Brighton, Brentford and to a lesser degree Liverpool, have loads of FFP/PSR headroom. Man City's numbers are cooked to bits.

Arsenal are literally selling academy players - actually from London - for £20-30m every year Just the Bukayo Saka (worth 100m imo), Emile Smith-Rowe (30m), Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock (30m), Eddie Nketiah (25m), Balogun (30m) with Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly up next. All players raised in London. Spurs have a relatively weak academy given their size and catchment area - Fulham's is better. But even Spurs have produced Harry Kane, Walker-Peters and Madueke spent the bulk of his development at Spurs & Palace. Fulham have Fabio Carvalho, Harvey Elliott, Djed Spence, Sessegnon, Matt O'Riley. I liked Spence at Forest and thought he played well against us. Always liked Fabio Carvalho too. Man City have a great academy but they are taking players from around the world and especially London (Tosin, Sancho are London boys). Chelsea can focus on London and the surrounding suburbs. Chelsea are sometimes victims themselves of losing academy players (sometimes by choice) - Olise, Rice and Musiala spent the majority of their academy days at Chelsea - lads raised in South/West London.

Man City have a lot of PSR headspace. Spurs ars sweeping up teenage wonderkids like nobody's business for big money. 5 transfers for players 21 or under in the summer for big money - 40m, 30m, 15m, 10m and a cheapy all for boys. Gray, Odobert & Bergvall look like real talents. It's a season or two too early for them.

The Kulu elbow was crazy and he definitely intended to smash AG. He's going to do something else. The elbow was mad.

Genuinely one of the best academies in the world. And one of the best catchment areas too. What other cities have the quality and depth of London in world football? A London active 25 squad would be tops.

He's fine where he is but he's so good under pressure, you do wonder if he can play at CM/DM. That's the thing with the wonderful modern fullback. As good as they are - they usually lack the footballing ability to play CM. Particularly facing their own goal or under pressure. And then the appreciation of space. We've seen TAA struggle with that when inverting or playing CM where i've seen James take to it like a duck to water - a player i've always thought was a more complete footballer. Hall is not as devastating as either going forward but behind James he's one of the most complete footballers i've seen in the PL.

Fuck FFP man. We still have massive issues and it looks like we need to sell to reinvest (unless you know what). Even if we qualify for the CL, we have the same problem. We probably need to spend £150-200m on the existing squad to be able to compete in the CL and league at the same time. That seems impossible to do (unless you know what). Villa are struggling because they don't have the squad.

This is relatively small for the big 6. It impacts clubs like us more as a overall %. Our revenues are 300mish. Man U's is 800mish no? The competition money has a much bigger impact for us or Villa than it does Man U. Leicester are going to get a PL points deduction, get relegated, get a Championship points deduction. Spend the next 5 years trying to get in and stay in the PL and lose most of the brand value they accumulated by winning the PL & FA Cup. And it's just because of FFP - their Owners are happy to finance Leicester. The game would never let this happen to a Cartel club.