TRon

He's not really the back up either though, Dan Burn is. I think he would have signed expecting to wait his turn, but not being picked today would probably hurt a bit.

Not sure that's the role he envisaged when he signed.

Which again points to how PSR is always there in the background and we have to constantly re-evaluate each player's value year on year. The only time that doesn't become a factor is when we are already at the top or teams will pay us huge money for players we don't want. Neither of which is true at the moment.

The rate British players are valued, I doubt it.

Well, even your amortisation calculation shows where the priority lies. Let me be clear: I DON"T want to sell Barnes for exactly the reasons you said. I already said this in an earlier post when I asked why would any fan want to sell a player of his calibre? But why did we have to sell Anderson and Minteh? We can't just pretend this won't come up again, PSR is real. Either we sell and replace with appreciating assets or we get progressively worse season on season. What is the alternative? I hope you aren't going to say sell Almiron for £25m instead.

Plus the sort of clubs who can pay those sort of wages don't want him.

I'm pretty sure if you asked Howe, he would want to keep all of our players, including Longstaff and Murphy, both of whom are invaluable squad players. There is only one reason we would contemplate selling anyone, and it is PSR. So if a 27 year old Barnes can be sold and replaced with someone who is 22 and has a high ceiling, I think we will have some hard decisions to make. Unfortunately we can't have the best of both worlds any more, and no matter what anyone thinks, the only reason for that is PSR.

No one knows what will happen. I am pretty sure Isak is happy here, we play good football and he's at a good club. If we get CL football - which I think there's a good chance we will - and we can bump up his pay closer to what he would get elsewhere, then he will stay.

When you look at clubs like Arsenal - and Man U for that matter - compare their strikers to Isak, even if it's a lazy story, you can believe they'd love to have Isak instead.

Every single club in the world wants to find the hidden gems. They can't all find them. I suppose that is why we have hired Mitchell. Time will tell if he has got more about him than all the competition.

If we don't sell players, how do we buy new ones then?

Why did we sell Elliott Anderson for effectively £15m then?

That's totally missing the point. Why would fans want to sell a good player? Especially one who is pretty much proven at this level and is still in his prime? The only reason for it is the FFP/PSR which is driven by the cartel. Did you forget we had to sell Anderson and Minteh to balance the books only a few months ago despite having the richest owners in the world?

He'll be a good signing for someone, that's for sure. You pretty much are guaranteed a certain amount of goals a season from the left wing. He's just not better than Gordon.

Tbf, they are all small time clubs, the FFP model suits them down to the ground as they know their place in the pecking order and don't have any ambitions to be anything than what they are. It's the clubs with the ambition and history to aim for the top that are a threat to the cartel, and that would be the likes of us, and probably Villa. Quite incredible really, that the cartel will tie themselves in knots with legislature to stop at most, a couple of potential rivals.

While I'm all for that sort of signing, it might well cost us CL football if we don't sign someone who can deputise for Isak if he gets injured.

Man U are having to sell to buy because their American owners have been using them as a cash cow and siphoning off the profits for themselves.

Yes but all the cartel clubs can spend money on improving their recruitment as well. It's not an advantage for us per se. If anything, they have more resources to hire the best people, the best managers, the best CEOs etc. It's great that there are clubs outsmarting them at the moment, but you can't count on that as some baked in advantage in the future, whereas the cartel can absolutely count on PSR and FFP to shut out any clubs threatening their positions.

The sound of that ball smacking off the post nearly was so loud I thought the ball had come out of the TV screen and crashed off my soundbar.

Eventually having more money to spend on resources results in more success. That's precisely why the cartel clubs have fought so hard to make sure only they get to spend their resources. Long term they will pay bigger fees and wages. Look where Chelsea and Man City were before their £billions spending spree if you doubt it.

I wasn't sure if Leicester were one of those clubs, but if they were it would be sweet sweet justice if the PL hit them with everything they've got.

Touche.

Yes if things keep going well I agree. If we get CL he will definitely sign a new deal, don't think he would want to be anywhere else playing his football everything else being equal. I just find it very annoying that the game is rigged in such a way that clubs like ours are incentivised to fail by selling our best players unless we can somehow keep getting CL football.

If we get that much back in our coffers I'll be the first one to request a Miggy Appreciation Day.

Honestly it annoys the fuck out of me that players like Isak would most probably love to sign a new contract for life here if we were able to match the wages of the super league cartel clubs. We have the money to pay those wages as well. The whole system is rigged and needs to be ripped asap.