TRon

Hopefully a bit less naive since the heady days of our takeover. Then: Now:

Depends what we actually bid. Palace were talking £70m, there was talk our actual bid was more like £50m, which while it's still a lot, would not be unreasonable for an England defender. Even then though, I agree it doesn't really seem like a trademark MItchell deal so kinda strange business all round.

The Guehi pursuit was obviously Howe led. Guehi would be the opposite of the typical transfer profile MItchell has made his name for, i.e, under the radar younger players who don't have a high profile yet. You could argue he should have done his own stuff right off the bat, but considering Howe's success and popularity, it was understandable he'd try and get him the player he wanted to get him onside, provided the price wasn't ludicrous. Which in the end it was.

The rumour was that Howe really rated him, and that was back when he was being quoted at £40m plus. It's not out of the question that at a lower price Howe might think he could do a Chris Wood type job as a target man alternative to Wilson for a relatively low fee.

The problem with dragging out these legal battles and repeatedly kicking the can down the road, is that legal battles cost money, and ultimately every club has to pay for them. £48m in legal fees at the last count, is that just a drop in the ocean for the lesser lights?

Ultimately that's what he will be judged on (apart from on here). You'd like to think he's got a good track record of recruiting well, and we did our homework before appointing him.

I think they would rather cut their own balls off than give the go ahead to rule changes which would help other clubs to break their market stranglehold.

Prior to PSR/FFP that is how I assumed we would close the gap with the top clubs, buying players who were coming into their later years but were still performing at top level. Think the 29-33yr old bracket who clubs would let go because no resale value. It's what Man City and Chelsea did during the early days of their takeover to attract talent that otherwise would go to CL clubs.

I think we would LIKE to have a big refresh in the summer, but the same will be true for next summer as the past couple. PSR will stop us making any really big moves unless we end up selling a purple. At the moment it doesn't even look like associated party sponsorships is going to allow that much more headroom.

Said this in the summer. I just hope the club are aware this might happen and will have moved onto more realistic alternatives.

I think the current plan is to trust the squad we've got will get us into Europe since most of the players we would like to sell aren't really attracting any buyers unless it's negative PSR value. We'll be adopting the Brighton/Palace model of bringing in young talent and hoping we strike it rich ongoing, and that will be Mitchell's remit.

If we got a £50m offer for Longstaff we would take it regardless of what Howe thought. Not because we want to sell Longstaff, just no other way to operate under current PSR restrictions.

If they offered us the same money for Longstaff I'd take it.

Don't believe that for a minute. There's not a chance in hell we would have turned down $18m.

It's not sexy but probably the only position we can take bearing in mind all these rules have been invented to keep us down. We aren't Spurs, if we spend a penny which isn't legally watertight, they'll come after us with everything they've got.