afar

I honestly don't think the championship will be as competitive next season. Villa are in a financial mess right now, Norwich will start to lose some of their better players. The other teams that went down with the Mackems are not it great shape themselves with doubts over their management and to be frank pretty weak squads. For the teams that get knocked out of the playoffs, they all have good young managers, who could move on to better things,I'm sure at least one or two of them will. Leeds and Derby could challenge but have crazy bad ownership so no clue where they will be. If they play the loan market well, like Huddersfield did this year, get in a couple of players way too good for that division, they could easily challenge. I agree with you though, they are going to be a big scalp down there but they'll not be everyone's cup final like we were unless they can pack out there stadium of shite every week, which of course they will not. The biggest obstacle for them is to turn around this culture of losing, remove this negative atmosphere around the club. The big thing that worked in our favour this year was this feeling of unity that Rafa brought and the hope that although we were in a bad place there was better things on the horizon.

Great video, love seeing and hearing the old boys, just missing our all time highest goal scorer there. The kit is very traditional, a like it a lot, don't really care about the sponsor logo, it is what it is nowadays.

Agree, right now, you can pretty much ignore most of the bollocks that's being printed. We are about a month away from things actually starting to happen, with the exception of Atsu of course, whose fee is on a time limit.

Sensible decision, in today's market it's a no brainer for me, he was vital to in the run in, hugely important goal against Preston, another vital one against Cardiff and was fantastic against Barnsley. Seems like a good pro too.

Wouldn't be surprised if we failed to raise more than 10 million in sales unless we sell one of the players we don't want to sell (outside of the money already agreed for Thauvin), a Shelvey, Gayle, Ritchie, Lascelles type. It's really all about buying this off season. For me the priority is in this order. 1. No. 10, need true quality here, Sell Diame, De Jong and Perez ? 2. Winger, Arrons should be back but for how long till his next injury, buy Atsu on cheap to squad fill but need another Ritchie level of quality. 3. CM, need quality here to augment Shelvey and Hayden 4. Striker, could be higher up on priority list, they are probably going to stick with Mitro for at least another season and hope he develops, Murphy will be gone, but need another Gayle type in Rafa's system. 5. Sort out LB, Dummett first choice in the Prem ? What is Lazaar ? Does Haidara have a future? 6. What do you do with Anita and RB situation, I'm OK to roll with Yedlin and Anita next season but if he's not going to give Anita a new contract we will need another RB, unless Mbabu, Gamez and Sterry are expected to back up. 7. CB, Personally I would be ok to roll the current 4, but if one is sold will need to replace. 8. Sort the GK situation out, is Krul no. 1 or is it Elliot, Darlow seems out of favour, can Sels salvage his career with us.

I liked pretty much all three shirts this season, probably our best set in a long time, this one if true, looks ok too.

Wow they are really laying into Defoe, thought he was above criticism there: https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/defoe-doesnt-give-a-f-k.1362143/

They should be happy at today's result, they really couldn't have hoped for a better pair to be relegated with them, although both have recent champ experience neither are a big name with quality players and tons off assets. Both to me are similar to Norwich this season, they both need new managers too.

Hehe, it's worrying because it doesn't specifically mention TV money, but clearly pinpoints the relatively small amount of prize money we made for go up as champions. It talks about money made now rather than money that should still be in the bank from sales we've made, remember we have a 40 million gap or our favour from previous dealings that could and probably should be redirected to future transfers. If we take it in it's most literal reading and putting some numbers behind it, Ashley's statement is not that positive at all. He says we can keep the money from winning promotion (what is that, 7.5 million), the new sponsor (will that be paid in one big chunk or more likely over multiple years, maybe we get 5 million next season, also remember we pay all transfer fees up front), and any money we make from players sales (we are in a buying position right now not selling and we have few assets we are likely to make a lot of money on that we want shot of, player sales max I would say 10 million). Based on these completely made up and little researched numbers, that's a transfer budget of 22.5 million, that's not an awful lot in today's market. The big question is what's happening to the TV money, is that just going to the running of the club ? Are we working off last year's parachute payments ? Or this year's bumper PL TV deal ? Remember again our policy of paying up front for deals. My obviously ham fisted attempt of a post was actually more optimistic than my usual pessimistic miserable bastard approach. I said despite all this Rafa agreed to sign up, that means, he obviously knows a lot more about the details of the finances and is happy to go along with whatever constraints have been set for him. He came to this conclusion in a remarkably fast time frame, which should suggest to us that Ashley was not telling the full story and that is perfectly fine, I'm glad he's not making public our transfer kitty.

They will piss the league apparently if they keep their current squad in tact, the current squad that has sat at the bottom of the pile virtually all season with all left to play for is pipping Boro to 19th spot. They really need to get out of this delusion they constantly accuse us of. Their squad has been utter garbage for a long time, there is a reason why they've been where they have. Catts is world class if you read what a lot of them say, even if that was remotely true, which obviously it's not, he seems to play about 5 - 10 games a season. I've not seen enough of Pickford to comment, but I take this perception that he's England great young hope with a pinch of salt based on their previous. They've got to hope Moyes is smart enough to know he needs to rip it up and start again, a little tweak here or there to that squad will not get it done, they are nowhere near in the shape we were in 09 when we went down and just pruned a little fat off the squad.

I think the statement from Ashley is actually more worrying than positive however the fact that Rafa agreed to stay in pretty short time should give us all reason to be pretty optimistic. Ashley was never going to say the manager will have a transfer kitty of 20, 50, 70 or 100 million, that the kind of quote that gets owners in trouble and weakens your bargaining position on transfers as the buying clubs know how much you have. Rafa is known as a manager who likes to make signings and if he's so readily accepted that this is the place he wants to stay, then you can assume that there will be more than sufficient funds available to him to help him achieve whatever target he has set for himself, which I am a 100% sure will not be 17th place.

Well this is great news, just seen the title change so I will have to find and read all about where this statement comes from. I never really doubted it to be honest, thought Rafa was playing a bit of politics, the news groups trying to engineer a story and I had some faith that Ashley was intelligent enough to know if he wants his asset to appreciate, Rafa is key to that and the only thing that really makes sesne is to put all your trust in the man.

LOL, that's fantastic, thanks man. Thought this quote from there was pretty telling when it's toalking about their lack of money made through the turnstiles: "One of the highest average attendances in the division and one of the lowest gate receipts. Norwich, on about 15k lower attendances, generate more income through the turnstiles!!"

They should be hoping then that Short doesn't just give up on them, if he is a savvy businessman he probably should roll the dice one more time, do all he can to get the club back on the gravy train, then sell up as fast as he can. Their business model is clearly not working, there is no reason at all why they shouldn't be turning a profit, like we have been doing in recent years. Of course they don't generate anywhere near the income that we do outside of the TV deal, but they should still be able to have lived comfortably off the TV deal and their matchday income. Instead they've recruited terribly, changed managers on a frequent basis and therefore had to pay out big compensation packages. Like I said before they've abused the loan market to a point where they have spent a bulk of their budget on loan fees and those players have taking first team appearances away from their products hence why they've not had many salable assets in recent years. They need a whole restructure there from top to bottom, a whole new approach, perhaps that's Moyes's mandate and the reason they are keeping him on, ironically falling into the championship may be the best thing to happen to them to begin to implement that change. The problem is though the end goal is to obviously get back into the PL, they won't get back there in an expedited fashion unless they follow their previous mistakes of lots of loans and short term fixes. Can they afford to wait for the long term, it will benefit them hugely if they can.

They've been losing north of £30m a season for years, are £150m plus in debt and are about to see a £60m drop in turnover. It's not looking particularly great for them. But who are they in debt to, the owner or the banks ? If it's the owner then it's not worth worrying too much about, as it's just the value of his asset. He sells and it's all cleared up, he keeps the club and he has a decision to make to use any incoming cash to pay off his debt and slowly kill the club or he tries one last time to inject more cash to get them back up and be in a stronger selling position. If it's the banks they owe money too then they are truly screwed and probably can wave goodbye to the 100 million cheque which will land on their doorstep pretty soon.

Will probably depends on the terms of the loan, It's likely though the loan ends at the end of the season, which for us was Sunday however when we drew up the loan agreement I am sure we would have factored in the playoffs, the final is what 3 weeks away, I don't know. So maybe there is more time or maybe as you said the loan runs until the end of the window, which is what June 30th ?

So how exactly are their finances ? I know they have mountains of debt but is that debt like ours all to the owner, therefore not really debt, or do they owe a bunch the the banks and stuff ? How much do we speculate we have lost following the relegation was it 30 million ? They get the new TV deal money which is 100 million I believe the old one we received for finishing 18th was how much 50 million ? If so, could they be in the a situation where they actually made 20 million last year ? Therefore their finances have actually improved, obviously they will take a big hit next year but they didn't really splurge in the transfer market the last two windows, they bought crap and overspent on one in particular but surely the whole bill for their purchases didn't eat up the entirety of the TV money. On Sunday we played Barnsley who had 6 loaned players in their squad, other clubs have followed the same approach. It's a cheap way to build a competitive squad at this level. Sunderland has used that loan market way too much in recent years as a determent to the own players development. Hell they are still proud of helping develop Rose, to me that's a failure to secure the services of someone who performed for you. They have no intention whatsover of purchasing these loaned players, just a way to fill out their squad. Anyway the point I'm trying to make is that they can build a competitive championship squad on the cheap, if they get the 70 million they hope for for all their "superstars" that will help them immensely in the rebuild, if it's allowed (or even half that) to be plowed back into player recruitment. Not going to make any judgements on whether it will be a cake walk for them or a big struggle until everything shakes out, they do have some decent youngsters coming through apparently, if they can augment them with a bit of experience and quality then there is no reason whatsover that they shouldn't be one of the favourites to bounce back up. Moyes needs to learn to look past his old familiar places, stop picking up Everton and Manure rejects and bring in some loans or buys fthat can do a job in the Championship, just like Rafa did.

I'm not sure how long the buy out clause is active for, I'm sure they are still making up their mind on him but maybe it's already too late to get him for the fee that was agreed. We've got to remember also that he scored a hugely important goal against Preston, took over from Ritchie (whom many on here believe was our player of the year) in the last two games and we won both comfortably and he was a major part in that. Honestly for the fee we should have bitten their hands off.

Can you imagine all the situations this lad is going to be in in his life where those tats are at the very least awkward. Honestly why do this to yourself ?

Perfect business model, give the punter the stupidest whacked out design they can come up with, encourage them to put it in an easily visible location, then wait a few years until they come back to get it removed, as you are removing it sell them on another one If I didn't have a phobia for needles and a complete lack of an artistic bone in my body, I would be donning a gun myself

Two clubs who have recently been relegated and now fighting for a place in the champions league final. Obviously money has played a huge part in their revival, but it's still a fantastic effort, hell Juventus were signing Boumsong from us not so long ago

I'm telling you the place to put your money is into tattoo removal companies, they are going to make a killing in the years to come, this stupid lad should be front of the line.

Absolutely fantastic fan led process, produced wonderful scenes, hats off to the group.

It's still Perez versus Ipswich, that's a once in a decade kind of goal, not the most important but technically the hardest to replicate.

That's a fantastic video, gotta say NUFC TV have really stepped up, think making it free was a great move but they've put out some quality stuff. Good job to all that are involved with them.