The College Dropout

People were saying he was the best midfielder in the league. Better than Bruno. I don’t think they were judging him correctly then. And the over reaction is now the otherway.

You also have to consider we built that great side super quickly - 20 months. 4 windows ending January 2022 - August 2023. It's 2026 and the only people directly involved in signing that squad is Howe and his team, maybe Nickson too. It's not one bad window. June 2024 selling fiasco can be forgiven because we kept the team that won the cup and finished 5th but the Guehi saga and the Mitchell crap was a black eye. And we haven't looked a cohesive and competent outfit in the transfer market since in terms of incomings. Getting £20m for Kelly and bringing Thiaw for £35m is the best we've done.

At the time it felt like Isak leaving was this era of the project officially ending and the start of the team breaking up. Hope i'm wrong.

Aye but you based on historic and predictive revenues, existing salaries you can safely assume Man U still pay their players more money.

Struggling to upgrade Murphy. You talking about replacing Sandro Tonali.

Signing good players is fucking hard man. All this ‘so and so is replaceable’ is annoying to read when weve not definitively improved any starting spot since 2023.

The clubs have to announce how much they pay in wages in their annual reports. In football 95% of it will be footballer wages.

based on real numbers. Will always be 18 months or so out of date. Kieran Maguire has a similar dataset just cba to look. £70m less in wages. Average Man U player rate £2.5m more p/a than ours. £50k ish more per player per week.

We just need to be competent in the transfer market again. I'm less worried about the number of signings, what decisions are made... we just need competence to come back in the rooms

It's the leadership more than the manager. Last season Villa's ownership did all they could to secure B2B CL finishes. This year they are doing all they can to support another European push. It's also on the ownership to start reducing the squad age and becoming PSR compliant in the medium term.

Well-run is an oversimplification tbf. We haven't been operating at the competence, ambition, aggression and level of a club that intends to meet the status of our owners stated ambition. Spurs have had 20 years of great growth. They've been super well-run for most of the 21st century, until the last few years. But winning trophies and such was never the real ambition. This has been my argument about us vs Villa for over a year now. Villa are moving in the manner of the owners stated ambitions. Since Staveley left, it's become increasingly clearer to me that there's a massive gap between what the Owners say and what the club do and how they go about doing it. Man U, Chelsea and to a lesser extent Spurs all have entrenched advantages that has let their ownership get away with being poorly managed for a number of seasons. If Glazers own any of the other 14 PL clubs they get relegated. Their advantages make it easier to be poorly run for extended periods of time.

None of them are well run. We haven't bee well run for 2 years and it's showing. Because top teams aren't well run. With great management, some big investment - you can make a real fist of it. We had been doing that. Villa are doing that. But aye as soon as you get it wrong, like properly wrong, we can fall right off it.

Wissa was like 4th or 5th choice - that's panic stations imo. I get the logic behind signing Elanga but he isn't good enough. I sort of get the logic behind Ramsey but he isn't good enough. I thought I understood the logic behind Woltemade but I don't anymore.

France is some football factory man.

Love Popey. He's a legend to me. But this season he's showing regression. Real regression.

The proven PL stuff was a poor strategy. JSL was not the answer.

Serious teams shouldn't be 1 injury away from: Trippier Thiaw Botman Burn Serious teams shouldn't be 1 injury away from starting 2 fullbacks aged 33+.

By not good - I mean it is not a squad that can challenge in the CL (last 16), FA Cup (SF/F), League Cup (SF/F) and then finish 4th or 5th. Most people thought the signings were not good enough. The strikers were panic buys and major question marks over the rest. At the time, a lot of people didn't think it was a good window. Did you?

The squad is big but it is not good. Good gets you points.

Usually is no? Last season 66 was 5th, 6th, 65 7th then 8th was 61. I think there’s a chance 7th is sub 60 points. So maybe we can sneak in there.

I would’ve accepted 8th as our level at the start of the season.

If I was a betting man, I would bet on us to finish with 56-59 points and finish 8th-10th. Maybe more if we sign someone or lose in the play offs. Less if we go deep in the CL or FA Cup.

It changes a lot of things. He deserved that new contract and discussions were taken off the table by new leadership. That would change anyone’s relationship with their employer. The offering of a contract in summer 2025 shows the gap between ‘the club’ and Isak and his team. Being caught off guard that our star player wants to leave is bad management. Of course it was going to be ba, we’ve changed who should protect the club 3 times in 14 months.

Yeh the squad is not good enough. You can’t rotate for the sake of it. The players stepping in have to be good enough to win premier league football matches.

Mitchell 100% messed up with Isak contract. If Isak signs a contract without a release clause in summer 2024 that changes a lot of things. If he was eyeing a potential move he would get a release clause Ala Bruno making summer 2025 easier to plan. The 2025 contract offer was stupid and naive. The ship had already sailed. That contract offer is an example of how badly the situation was handled.