Colos Short and Curlies

I think the uncomfortable truth is that we have 3 real top drawer players in Isak, Bruno and Tonali and a manager where his style does not get the best out of them. So we either cash in and build a squad that plays to Howe's strengths or we build an ethos around them (presuming of course that there is a system that gets the best out of all three) and bring in a manger who plays within that style

Not attainable now but I reckon we’d be in a slightly better position overall if they had landed Dracula instead of Howe. I wouldn’t go there as it would be very short termism but Jose would inject a winners attitude to the club. or there’s always lampard….

What’s the position from the start of the 22/23 season or even 23/24? after a sticky winter we were flying second half of the first season points wise and then obviously took a load 22/23. have we plateaued since then? Absolutely and that would begin to define reaching a ceiling. Note the begin there, it’s not a statement saying he has

the unknown there of course is that if we don’t get Europe the board will need to consider what the new manager will want and need

Great thanks, I had .store in my browser

Is soccer04 down / moved to a new site?

I haven’t seen one, just 2 different sets of cards. last season was a joke, 2 sticker books and 3 card options. And of course the kids in school all did different ones. i do love seeing the kids doing the old got, got, need bit outside school; somethings never change!

We’d need a dm or left back (to try hall back in midfield), and Botman back bit I’d like to see a variation on 3-5-2 Botman and Schar as a back 2 Hall/new dm playing as a 3rd cb or dm depending on the phase of play Bruno and Tonali as a midfield 2 Tino and Hall (or new) wingbacks Gordon as a ten Wilson and Isak up top With most teams playing 1 up top the 3rd centre half can be a spare part hence the hybrid cb/dm role

I love the peak of pre game postings, its like everyone is on happy pills

thats the bad boy

There used to be a decent little games shop in the Metro, corner of the red mall I think

The Zip Stick was a game changer

I'm pretty much the same, but I'd rather see Haaland jump to Spain and City look at Isak rather than Arsenal. He would take Arsenal up a level and an bit but wouldn't have the same impact at City

You'd end up needing to reshape the full pyramid though, if you increase the ability to spend in the PL then you're pretty much closing the door to clubs becoming established after promotion.

He looked pretty decent against Manu on his debut as well. the injury definitely took away any chance of him being a success here.

There's 2 things that dictate what a club can spend. 1. The profit that a club generates and/or use of the rolling £105m losses allowed under PSR 2. The cash available to utilise 1. Sponsorship deals increase 1, hence the APT rules and bring in cash for 2 Loans have no impact on 1 but increases 2. Bear in mind that the allowable losses are essentially cash losses so any club operating within the £105m needs a cash source to do so. As loans 'artificially' increase clubs ability to trade in players it stands to reason that there should be a mechanism to account for this. We've gone the equity route instead so there was no need to go down the loan route

Just add to that… the BPT requires a contract to stand up and essentially make sense when the term is removed. i don’t see how fixing this can be done under this principle, the whole idea behind APT falls down if you remove fair market value

Depending on the value commercial loans will often be at a variable rate with a hedging instrument put in place, its also not uncommon for these to be priced in 3-5 year periods. If you were looking retrospectively properly you would take that into account and it is very likely that all shareholder loans will have a period of the higher rates applied to them

That could still cause issues on a legal/compensation challenge. You have rules that were illegal but no redress for those adversely impacted and no retrospective ‘adjustment’ for those who benefited. you basically can’t unwind it which makes sorting it out so complicated. The new rules shouldn’t be that hard to draft if you were starting from zero. The PL have to be hoping that the likes of us and City agree to leaving the past in the past if the new rules allow for greater (not unregulated) use of related parties

So in theory a cap reduces the demands made by players and clubs (transfer fees) and this results in lower the rights bids and then lower costs for fans oi, stop laughing uncontrollably in the corner there

imo city aren’t actually that bothered about the APT rules and they won’t be the big winners from the ruling. what they now have is a view into the PLs legal thinking and one view on how an independent panel views them. that is invaluable in the way they defend themselves against the 115 and is the real reason they took the opportunity to ‘test’ APT and threw a lot more at the accusations then would ever stick

If you break it down PSR - not ruled one, not challenged. Probably fine to have as an overarching rule within a competition APT - ruled on, in itself not illegal if applied consistently and fairly Premier League APT - ruled on, illegal due to the different treatment of interest on shareholder loans and linked sponsorship - i.e. the treatment punishes clubs without debt who wish to use sponsorship money to underpin a club against those who would rather use loans to underpin cash losses. The decision on the Premier League APT means the use of APT in the premier leagues PSR has been illegal. Its an easy fix in theory - bring interest into cost calculations - but unwinding the past and the future impact from debt laden clubs makes it a nightmare. PSR will be thrown out in its current guise but will be replaced by something else that limits the overall spending of any one individual club

Yes but the key is that it is the PLs APT laws that were ruled on as being illegal and not the idea of APT full stop. Even Shaggy and Scooby Doo could work out the PLs plan with the rules they had in place

Eggs over Lambeasy