Memphis

To me, one of the most enjoyable things as a supporter is to see exciting young players who could be anything breaking through and making their name with us. It's not happened often enough for a very long time. It would feel cruel to snatch that away. 

Selling a player of his potential without even assessing him properly in our setup would be asinine. Unless we were to sell him to a mid to lower level PL club with a buy-back clause, basically a deluxe loan of sorts to ensure he plays. That would be fine by me. 

But a sale to a Liverpool or a higher-level club without a clause would be a repudiation of our stated goal of developing young talent. And would be a prime example of how the rules are set up to favor the historically wealthy clubs now and forever. 

1 hour ago, Charlies said:

Alleged pre match/training shirt (pic stolen from twitter)

 

All I know is that if @Jack27 starts a thread, the player ends up at Chelsea

I thought both sets of semis were officiated really well but this clown is on the verge of fucking everything up

Dortmund look so good, phenomenal movement and great passing through the lines. Should be up at least 1. Doing their fans proud. Madrid look a pale shadow of their best, which of course means they'll score a jammy goal in the 89th minute to win.

And as far as FFP is concerned, let's say Chelsea are offering 60k more per week than we are, that's the equivalent of an extra £16 million of transfer fee on a player we would sign to a 5 year deal. That's not nothing and not only would it blow up our wage structure, it would negate a lot of the perceived advantages of a free transfer.

Players have a short window to earn as much as possible. Chelsea apparently offered much more than we could, he doesn't have to move, they have European football, it would have been staggering had he chosen us over them. All of us would likely have done similar in our respective careers, if we're honest. 

Doesn't make it any less annoying but it's perfectly logical. He's a businessman, not a cunt. Now we have to work that extra bit harder to make things work this summer. 

Ultimately I can tell myself a lot of things to try to make myself feel better - and honestly our club will continue its upward trajectory no matter what - but it fucking sucks to miss out on Europe.

Just now, ATB said:

It will be a bigger problem if we miss out on EL och CL next season. then are the chances that our star player will leave, a lot bigger .

Without a doubt.

This result does pile pressure on Eddie Howe and the team to out together a top 6 finish and a decent cup run at minimum. 

I do have to say that anyone relying on us being in the Conference League to actually sign with us is probably not someone we want long-term. Bruno, Isak, and others have signed without guarantee of Europe. Our project should speak for itself without the third tier of European competition. 

Classic. 

Fucking hell City get it together

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Simple as.

I do feel for anyone who paid for this. Competing interests at work here. Club was involved in setting this up but I'm certain Howe wanted no part of it. And it doesn't make sense for him to. So you get this, which doesn't really make anyone happy. 

As I understand it, in the UK you have the right as an employer to monitor emails as long as the intrusion is minimised, justifiable and has been documented. I would say that the fear of sharing proprietary information is a justified reason to keep an eye on things. And now that it's been proven that he's not to be trusted, I think the monitoring becomes even more justifiable. It's interesting that Eddie Howe talked about how it wasn't ideal for Ashworth to still have access to club information while his position was unclear, that would have happened a week after Ashworth sent himself the Berrada email. I wonder how long the club has known about all of this - and how much that's played into us refusing to budge in negotiations with Manchester United.

I don't really think you can adequately judge a keeper's passing and sweeping absent the context of their team's style and players. I think we'd buy Mamardashvili because we think he'd be capable of whatever we need from the position, but more because you don't often see keepers available who are this young, this big, and this capable who have already proven themselves in an elite league. The timing isn't ideal but this would be an opportunistic move and I like the way we act when given an opportunity.

There's a lot of water under the bridge between Dougie/Parish and it only makes sense that Palace would want to be seen as doing all they can to keep him. And I'm sure it's hard for him to leave.

BUT you don't interview twice for a job you don't actually want. And we're not daft enough to play along with someone wasting everyone's time. It would be bad for his reputation and for ours. If he's already interviewed, he's comfortable leaving. So to me, this is all a facade to make it look as if Palace have done all they can to keep him when in reality he will have already decided it's time to go. 

Lloyd Kelly: Priority Target sounds like a bargain-basement Jason Statham movie

Ultimately as others have said we don't have the quality in depth to consistently perform at a high level. Today we were missing quality in all three phases and it cost us 2 points. It's unfortunate but also not surprising. I think Howe has earned more than the benefit of the doubt, so his taking Isak off - while I was as surprised as anyone - must have been for a decent reason. Howe's not Bruce. He's not an imbecile.

Just now, KaKa said:

 

I appreciate this post, because I hear this sort of thing about the more serious footballers out there, and there's more of them than people think.

 

Too many times on this forum people think all of these guys just go after the money and living in some flash city.

I think this is absolutely true. And I would add that we have typically only signed players who are of that mentality. Howe has certainly done a great job helping players improve but those players have to be of that ambitious, professional mentality for our plan to work.

34 minutes ago, Palace fan said:

Interesting one this.

 

Freedman has been personally involved in persuading all these players to come to Palace. With Wharton part of the draw with Dougie was apparently he'd been tracking Wharton since well before he broke into their first team. Personal touch.

 

But.... Palace slowly, slowly have been on a buy to sell model. It's taken time because when he came there was no money, serious FFP issues and no one to sell. Part of the pitch has been come to Palace and you play first team football. That's why Guehi, Eze, Olise and Wharton chose us. There comes a time, though when you do in fact need to sell.

 

It's all very well holding Zaha to ransom - that was a very special relationship - but to attract new blood you need to show that Palace isn't a prison but a pathway to glory. Yep, one more season with this team and European football is more than plausible but there's an obvious ceiling and we have too many players that would enhance any CL squad (note squad!!). We need to sell to get the next gen. The trick will be -and Parish is smart - not to do a Southampton or possibly a Brighton and lose them all at once. One a season - tops two.

 

Our assets are 

 

Eze - right age for a move 

Olise - by consent generally considered the best player we've ever had 

Guehi - has that young English leader home grown thing - most likely to leave

Andersen - the underrated one but actually the match if Guehi and wrong age bracket

Doucoure - the forgotten one - our season fell apart when he was injured not when Olise and Eze were out

Wharton - early days but just wow 

Richards - may look odd on this list but pedigree and only held back by the two ahead of him. Expect his tock to rise next year (sick note alert)

Mateta - carefully left off the list

 

Next note is that 10 years' later we're about to build our mainstand - obvious money pit and obvious scepticism about ring-fenced funding.

 

Someone needs to go this season to avoid 4 leaving next!

I always appreciate level-headed and intelligent insight from other clubs' supporters coming here, thank you for adding to the discussion.

Felt like Neville would start a question and his brain was about 5 seconds behind his mouth, so he'd introduce a thought and then have to delay while his brain came up with a question. "You know, FFP, Eddie, it's like, I mean, in terms of, you know, money and things like that, like how'dya decide how to sign in terms of, you know, like a player who cost a lot, but you don't really have a lot in terms of money to actually spend, do ya? How's that like?"

We have got to get the quality control sorted in this thread before summer. Givemesport? Caughtoffside? Come on guys. 

And who gives a fuck if some Arsenal fan says they swear that we're gonna sell Isak? That's not even a rumour. Not even worthy of being thought about. Bruno has a clause and a month. If he wants to go, he will. If he doesn't, we're not selling him.