Taylor Swift

You know, Ashley has taken a lot of shit in the past few years but we're actually being run like a football is supposed to be, given the financial constraints on us. Eventually, every club will have to be run like us, making a small profit/loss each year and trying to improve through bargains. The model that City and Chelsea run is unsustainable and eventually they will have to change. How long that takes is an obvious unknown, but maybe, just maybe, we'll be better off if we have our finances in order when the other clubs collapse under the weight of the debt so that we can take advantage. Or our conservatism will leave us way too far behind and thus making it impossible to catch up with the teams in the CL. If you take the latter view, then what City are doing is correct because they will consolidate their position in the top 4 with CL revenue and make it improbable that we'll overtake them in the near future.

Carroll would have had a value of zero in our official accounts because a) we never paid a fee for him and b) it's not his first contract at the club. We'll make a nice profit this year. That, I'm pretty sure of given how Ashley has slashed wages, made a profit on transfers and will be pocketing the highest tv revenue in a few years. Of course, we've made a hefty loss in the past few years so it's possible that Ashley will consider this year as a step toward recouping his investment and thus won't spend in the summer.

My expectations at present are the same as yours. I never said anything about expectations though, the point I was making was about the increasing acceptance of our best players leaving, as though we're a nothing club like Wigan. Yeah, it's not looking good. Heartbreaking that realistically the best we can hope for in the next few years is 6th or 7th place. The only chance we've got of changing the status quo is if the financial fair play rules fuck up City, Chelsea and Liverpool, and with us having the third biggest stadium in the league, we'll have a massive edge in terms of ability to generate revenue. We really, really need to keep the likes of Tiote and Enrique to do that, though.

Of all our players to dream about, Jon dreams about Stephen fucking Ireland Not Colo, the curly haired god, not Jose, the bull, not Tiote, the epitome of black power, but Stephen fucking ireland

Who would have a player like miccoli playing for him? I fucking would. He's an exceptional player, great technique, pacy, a bit inconsistent but like mattis says, he's in the zlatan mould where his mood affects his game more than it affects others. I love that he had to be substituted. Maybe Torres was wrong and there is still romanticism in football.

If attendances are hurt then things must change with the viewing experience in the stadium to recover lost fans. An easy way to accomplish that would be to lower prices. That benefits the average consumer. However, if you lower ticket prices, clubs' revenues will decline, which would lead to them being less competitive relative to other teams. However, because this will be a league-wide phenomenon, the loss revenue will result in clubs attempting to squeeze costs, the main one being wages. So that should lead to lower wages. I'd also say that when Sky's virtual monopoly is abolished, TV deals will be worth much less. No one is going to pay £1bn+ to show 25% of the games when their competitor will pay significantly less. That should also lead to clubs squeezing costs; the main one, again, being wages. But wages have been spiralling for over a decade. We see clubs in the Premiership paying out more than 70% of their revenue in wages. That is patently unsustainable. This, in combination with the financial fair play rules, leads me to believe that the bubble will burst in football. European clubs last year lost a combined £1bn++. That's a huge sum of money that has gone out of football. That's been the case for the past decade or so, so a lot of money has gone out of football. Some of it has been financed by owners, but a lot of it has been financed by debt. Now, when revenues decline, as they will if this ruling stands because tv deals will be worth less, this debt will be much harder to service. I think we'll see a few clubs with massive debt struggling to survive in 5+ years. In the end, the money that goes in and out of football has to be relatively balanced. If a lot of money comes in, then you have inflation (transfer fees and wages have exploded, except money hasn't really come in to football, it has just been financed by debt). If you have a lot of money that goes out, you get deflation. Football will eventually have to go through a period of deflation because the numbers just don't make sense right now. Wages are going higher. Transfer fees are going higher, yet revenue has not increased by the same percentages. Now if tv revenue declines, that will be a major squeeze. And if clubs have to lower ticket prices, that will be another major squeeze, since about 50% of a club's revenue comes from tickets and attendance-related services. I just don't see how football will survive in the state that it's currently in.

Colo has been better than Barton.

How in the hell does Coloccini only have 5 votes? He's been immense.

Kaka has been as good as his old self. I hope he's able to keep this up.

Kaka looks like he's recovered his speed; just gliding around the pitch now.

What the fuck is Carragher saying?

Our fans were louder at 0-4. That's a penalty.

Man Utd's destined to win this year's title. Cunts.

Cech with another mistake.

Are you fucking kidding me?

What an absolute load of crud. Yeah, Huth should take the corners and Etherington should be in the box. Ancelotti wants him taking the set pieces so Lampard can hang about on the edge of the area and Terry/Ivanovic and others can compete for the headers. Anyone concluding from that tactic that Drogba has 'no heart for battle' is suffering from either bias or stupidity. Or both. Ouch. 1) Anyone who has seen Drogba over the course of his career knows that whilst he is physically big and possesses a lot of strength, he is also a pussy, who dives, makes cowardly fouls and isn't the warrior you'd expect someone of his size to be. This is evinced in his overall play - not just my initial comment. You've been watching him for a while now with your Drogba-blinkered glasses, of course - and knowing what you're like with your "favourites", I'm not surprised you can't recognise this. 2) Why does that plan any worse with all three of Ivanovic/Drogba/Terry in the middle, Lampard waiting for the lay-off and Malouda/Boswinga/Cole pinging in the ball? 3) Jermaine Beckford/Andy Cole. I disagree. Drogba has always looked up for a battle, even if he's a diver.

They already have enough black power. We could use some more.

Cech's kicks have been atrocious. It's just not the smart way to start a counter-attack. The ball bounces too high so it's hard for the strikers to control, the keeper can't be precise with the direction nor power of his kicks, you get the wind involve etc. Just throw it out to your FB and let him 'go on a rampage', as Ian Darke put it in Pro Evo a few years ago.

Title of Johnson's autobiography: How I Tricked Everyone Into Believing I Was A Defender

Maxi We've had some good games in the past couple of years. These Chelsea v Liverpool ones have been pretty good too, especially the CL ones.

With Boselli it would probably depend on the type of football we play. Not the first striker to struggle in the premier league in his first season and i disagree that he has no speed. I accept it would be a risk but if we get him cheaper than what Wigan paid for him at the start of the season then it could be worth it as long as we sign another striker or two to go with him. I think both Dann and Johnson are better than Williamson. Johnson in particular i would think would be a good partner for Colo while Dann at 23 years old could get better. My point is that they're both slow. Boselli does not have any pace. There's no way to spin that. It takes 15 minutes of watching Wigan to deduce that.

Maxi

Wow, that's a quick card.

He got them promoted, surely he should be given some time to turn things around. Even if they get relegated again, doesn't the fact that he got them promoted mean something?

Boselli from Wigan? Fucking hell, he has no pace and no strength. Don't you notice these physical attributes right away? How many strikers succeed in the Premiership with neither? Johnson and Dann aren't much different to Taylor and Williamson. They're tall but slow. We need a quick-ish CB to replace Williamson and partner Coloccini. Dorrans would actually be a decent option for us. I'm surprised West Brom haven't given him more games.