Colos Short and Curlies

I'm sure I read that they were selling Mangala

Maybe that's when we see Hall and find out he is a regen of Shearer

Joking aside, 5th may look doable after our next 3 games

It's time

If you were Villa right now you’d be psyching up to score earlier than Luton or Sheff Utd. if we were a home I’d say the same about us

I know, it’s fucking played in statistics and data wells these days

im a keegam disciple, it’s 3 at the back!

And I’ll get this in now - there are 4 on the bench who I wouldn’t be unhappy if they end up on the pitch tonight, 3 of them who could switch up the attack and/or midfield

3 at the back, 2 sitting deep and a hybrid 10/8 it’s a subtle shift from how we end up a lot of the time but puts more discipline in the deeper 2 and gives Isak more support.

those other signings included Wood and Burn. on paper tit makes him even crazier for joining after those signings! (actually was Burn a 31st signing?)

The Blackburn loss in 92/93 is the only time in the Premier League era where we've got to the 5th round and not made the quarters. Will we exorcise the ghost or have a nice bookend after this game?

History is on our side today - its historically been a good day including a win against Villa, agreeing a fee for Woodgate and completing the Bruno signing. On the downside Cabaye got a 3 match ban on a retrospective review and I fully expect Bruno to have a 2 match ban after tonight

the more you hear/read the more the whole system seems gridlocked so even loans become fewer and harder to do. if we are right towards the edge of ffp limits then a loan would be the only option now and you’re not going to get anyone that you would want in the team unless you strike it really lucky. At that point you may as well chuck one of the u23s in

He’s nailed on for a yellow tomorrow night

And plays a fucking blinder

The way transfer fees are talked about is a little bit misleading. You don't buy/sell a player and you are not buying them out of a contract. Its the registration that is being purchased, and this is just like any other asset. This particular asset is in effect a license for a player to play. Its all technicality really, you don't have the registration without the player but buying/selling players would kinda be modern slavery And I think you know that in any case. Player contracts are a little peculiar as well in that they don't have clauses that give the right for either party to serve notice, combined with the registration a player has no way of exiting the contract and the club cannot exit it without paying in full. If you go back to Bosman this is why transfer fees were allowed to remain and why mid season transfer windows are in operation. Anyway fuck FFP, its going to be challenged, my guess is by Forest using the additional fee obtained on the BJ sale as the lever to bring a case. Again my guess, the PL will pull back on them and give them a suspended sentence and will rush through some fudge of a reform that allows for greater owner spend. We will no doubt be putting soft pressure from the sides on FMV at the same time with sponsorships and this too will be modified to allow FMV + a % to allow for owner sponsorship. Hopefully Everton don't get let off

its payback for Souness now

Never mind FFP, this page is everything that is taking the fun out of football. just watch it with your own eyes, get totally partisan about your own players and how good they are and shit over everyone else’s, no matter how good they actually are. Bonus points for having an unwavering hatred of players from a particular team (like Liverpool) who gives a flying monkeys about these stats. do you enjoy watching someone play and on the eye test do they make the team better. leave the boring stats analysis to the back room teams and the manager

If its BBC1 Wales then should be English Language. I'd guess at either Hartson or Saunders on co-coms

Nice try, but when you sell them back you'd take the remaining unamortised value of the registration straight to the P&L, so a £80m income from the sale in year one less 1/5 (assuming a July buy, 5 year contract) of the purchase value. Year 2 is 4/5 of the purchase value as a cost with no income. In the third year of the calculation you've actually hurt yourself pretty bad by doing this

Chukwuemeka was the season before Grealish wasn't he? The point still stands that the big sale they had drops out of the calculations after this year and they have a net £100m spend from the last 2 years to consider regardless of the sales. They are by no means in any risk of a FFP breach this year, but if they want to buy biggish again this summer they will need to sell to balance up next years FFP. If you are flying in the top 4 without using a £50m rated player and want to fill a gap elsewhere it becomes a fairly obvious sale. The whole league is also going to have to work with the fact that very few teams now can afford £30-£50m on other clubs academy players and this route to boosting FFP headroom will reduce pretty quickly now

This isn't even that big a tactical switch as we often see Burn tuck in and Trips maraud forward. It just helps out Bruno and Isak a lot. Thumbs up from me

They haven't done much post Grealish and that impact falls off the calculations after this season. As Villa pretty much broke even on a cash basis for transfers that year and then a net £100m (ish) in the 2 years since they will be coming up to the same barrier we have this year. I think they will need to sell someone for decent cash in 2024/2025 (be it summer 24 or Jan 25) if they want to invest for next year. Even with CL cash