Colos Short and Curlies

Realistically you're looking at a centre mid and right winger as the 2 positions that could be transformational at the start of the season now - Wilson is currently fit and whilst he is fit he is a top 6 striker. Almiron's form (albeit preseason) makes it that bit more difficult to get a transformational signing there so you are left with the third peg of the Bruno-Joe/? triangle to fill as an immediate priority. Yes we need another forward to cover for Wilson's inevitable injury and a winger to push on ASM/Almiron or whoever would be sensible but its not going to hurt us if they come in over the next fortnight compared to being in pay for Atalanta

Harvey Spectre (no Phillip) in the pros

It’s not often you see a manager looking better and more relaxed 8 months into a gig.

CFO still to be appointed…. Might start pestering Amanda on linked in ?

the non Tom Cruise version obviously - that’s Fraser!

sorry but if you buy at 30 and sell at 15 you’ve made a loss. it may be an acceptable loss but it’s a loss

Still waiting for a phone call about my CFO application

I have a feeling it was Danny Mills and accumulation of naughty hacks that day rather than one specific incident

Deffo one for the milf thread

Big Joe wearing kids shorts?

rather have him on the pitch than in a factory

Lies, it was delayed by an hour

You're forgetting about a certain team in black and white (or Saudi green and white)

or it just forces more money into the game through ensuring that stadia are sponsored.

He's an artist now

Not really, You only start depreciating (i.e. allocating a cost into the accounts) once the building is complete. So unless UEFAs FFP relate to timing of cash payments rather than established and recognised accounting rules it would be tricky to work it that way. As Unbelievable points out any stadium or training facility spend would be spread over a long period of time so you could look at other ways of bringing costs forward to create the same impact - writing down contract values would put a lot of cost in the current year should we wish to as even modest £20k a week gives you £1m of cost per year of contract write down. Its a nil sum game though, over a 3 year period it would even out so only of benefit if we are very confident of significant increased revenue. Edit - another option is of course to get the training ground sponsored. Nobody is going to be able to argue that £4m a year is not market rate for sponsorship, put a 20 year deal in place and you cover the cost and get around FFP I'd personally be lumping as much into this years accounts that relate to Ashley's time here, write down contracts, accrue for early termination fees etc and do a mega friendly in Saudi just after the World Cup that magically has the same value as these write downs. I'd also be looking at how much of the training ground could be classed as land as this is not depreciated so theoretically no cost ever in the accounts for it.

I do like how footballers are on the Australian key skills list for visas.

always thought Maximo Park were from Smoggieville

Darlow on loan / low fee to Burnely wouldn't be the worst move for all involved now

I have a funny feeling that West Ham will regress this year. The aim has to be 4th. Realistically its 6/7 but we need to be able to take advantage of any slip from Arsenal/Spurs/Chelsea/Man Utd and history suggests that there will always be 1 or 2 from the expected top 6 that have below par seasons

My favourite little quirk with Ben Arfa was the way he would absolutely thunderbastard it from close range, literally hit it as hard as you can after a dainty little run. Would still take him for next season as a squad option ahead of Fraser or Murphy

It is language, there is no ‘loan with an obligation to buy’, there is (a) a loan and then (b) a second transaction which is the purchase. They are not linked contractually. there are non financial reasons for doing this as well as FFP - insurance, recovery costs from injuries etc. for this discussion the upshot is that the purchase only shows on the accounts when it’s made, not when the loan starts

it’s not, they are 2 different transactions. the loan is an operating expense in the year. The obligation to buy at most would be a provision with an equal asset on the book, but overall probably ignored on grounds of materiality as there is no profit impact. im surprised (or maybe not) that FFP hasn’t added a clause to deal with them but accounting wise it’s pretty clean to deal with edit actually it would probably be a future obligation disclosure rather than a provision, so just a note to say it will happen rather than recognising it

I don’t see what you can do with extending contracts, amortisation rules are on the initial contract length

correct