oldtype

Last bit of hope for the season well and truly disposed of

6 hours ago, et tu brute said:

The fuckers don't believe we can put him on gardening leave for 20 months. Do they know nothing about contract law and that this period of time is obviously written into the contract HE signed. They also seem to think we will only get 5 million, well they obviously don't consider who owns our club and that they have a reputation of being ruthless at business. 

Just to keep everyone's expectations reasonable, we are 100% going to agree on a number for him at some point, and it will be undisclosed so both sides can save face. 

We may be contractually entitled to let him rot, but sophisticated parties will typically work something out in these situations, no matter how acrimonious. 

2 hours ago, mighty__mag said:

Eddie came over seemingly not that arsed if Ashworth leaves, for me that's enough to say it really doesn't matter a huge deal.

To be fair, Howe is a little self-interested here. By necessity, this will result in him having more influence on transfer dealings.

https://x.com/korfootballnews/status/1759634691257475514?s=46&t=aPX7HF03TLnujCUroFqbcQ

This is a viral joke specifically created to drive me insane. It has to be

2 minutes ago, Mazzy said:

Hardly a rip off if those are the terms in his contract. Ashworth will have agreed to these kind of terms and if he's THAT good then £20M is nothing to those Londoners.

I imagine we would have put some extremely onerous terms for release in his contract given that we got him essentially the same way so we know he’s the type that’s always looking for the next step up.

1 minute ago, wormy said:

 

£20m+ is a fair starting point. A fucking rip off on the face of it but for what it means and where he's going, entirely fair. When they inevitably scoff the club should just ask them if they remember one Jesse Lingard.

 

And he joined us the exact same way so he can get fucked kicking up a stink over it.

Ashworth: “hear me out boss, I’ve got a genius plan that will fix our FFP problem, but you’re not going to like it…”

Objectively, can’t really fault someone for taking a step up in their career when offered the opportunity.

Subjectively, I hope he develops chronic, explosive, and unfixable diarrhea.

I distinctly remember posting at the beginning of the season that we had such luxury of depth that Gordon could afford to run his bollocks off for 70 minutes knowing that good players would be there to replace him if he got tired.

What an idiot I was  

I wonder if we'll ever get to the level of absurdity of American sports where it's considered "unsportsmanlike" to celebrate a goal too hard.

7 minutes ago, Conjo said:

McGinn to Viaplay in post match interview: "The celebrations in the away dressing room will motivate us to stay ahead of them with more than the over 10 points we're already ahead of them"

 

Salty much?

What is he even angry about?  that we're happy that we won a football game?

Just now, ste_ne24 said:

He might be related to Lee Dixon?

To be fair, commentators often just want the game to be competitive.

Okay never mind, I'm a dummy.

54 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

That's fine, I just hope it doesn't go tits up second half of the season and we don't make Europe for the lack of options in midfield. If it's a cold hard business decision and we think it makes more sense to write the season off and go again next season fair enough. But we will get less money for the same players, so will maybe not be able to afford the better calibre players regardless.

If I understand this amortization stuff correctly, the longer we hold a player, the smaller their book value becomes, which increases our FFP boost when we sell them. So we can afford to let a player go for slightly less in the summer and still get the same benefit since it's all monopoly money for us anyway. 

Still convinced that we'll lose this.

I think the pretty obvious problem is that all the clubs who would want our players are operating under the same constraints we are. We need to sell before we buy, but so does everyone else. And there are no buyers. 

The Saudi League is the way around that, but as others have discussed in this thread, there are still human beings involved, and if it doesn't work it doesn't work. And frankly I don't mind us steering clear of selling players there anyway given the obvious conflict of interest. 

Damnit, I keep forgetting that these fuckers are good now.

Maybe it's the masochistic NUFC fan in me but I think it would be a lot less fun if we could just spend infinite money every window.

It's a good thing that ownership is being forced to think about building sustainably and growing the club's commercial infrastructure instead of just going out and buying Robinho. The Saudis (hopefully) won't be there to bankroll everything forever.

13 minutes ago, timeEd32 said:

 

This is how I feel about Miggy, but I'm not sure this is true for Trippier. He could easily be our starting RB and captain for the first game next season.

 

It also feels like we're potentially set at fullback for next season if we keep him. Trippier, Tino, Burn, Hall (presumably), and Targett (unless we can sell him, fingers crossed) provides options and cover. But if we sell him then suddenly Tino is the starting RB, the starting LB is one of those others, and we don't have a backup RB. 

 

Whereas with Miggy we know we want to upgrade RW anyway and I'm confident it's at or near the top of the club's list. He would be a nice squad option, but there are other ways to go about that (e.g. Gordon as a backup).

 

With Trippier it feels like we're getting less money for a more important player that may also force us to invest more into his position in the summer.

 

I'm sure we could figure something out at backup RB in the summer if we have to. I just don't think it makes sense to have Trippier blocking Livarmento's ascent to the starting role next season.

We're never going to get this much money for him again and we were probably going to move him on in the summer anyway.

Given the reality where we are this season, it makes sense.

1 minute ago, cubaricho said:

We’ll have to adapt and maybe it unlocks another player or two that will each make 20-30 more passes a match now.
 

I for one will look forward to us playing a modified style and hope we become less predictable in the process. 

The "all of our creativity comes from our 33-year-old right back" model was never going to be sustainable anyway. We have other creative players, they can step up to fill the void. We have a whole half-season with relatively low expectations for Howe to figure it out.

Just now, Joelinton7 said:

He’s right, does score and assist most games. Confident player. I can’t understand why they’re letting him go as well unless he’s pushed for it. 

I assume he's been pushing for a move because he feels that he's good enough for the first team and is frustrated that he hasn't gotten his debut yet. Probably sees the chances that Miley has been getting in our squad, and knows that we're always going to be one injury away from him starting every game for the remainder of the season. 

I'm happy that we're not looking at short-term impact players at inflated prices this January in order to improve our league position. We should see our never-ending injury crisis this season as an opportunity to grow young players for the future, rather than a hole that has to be plugged with average veterans or loan signings. 

This will give us an extra body to put on the pitch if there's nobody else, but also a player that can grow with the club long term. Of course he's not going to win us as many games as Kalvin Phillips this season, but that's not the important thing for where we are in our development. Given the FFP constraints, we just can't afford to spend money looking for a quick fix (unless it's a Chris Wood sort of situation where we need to avoid relegation). 

1 minute ago, NWMag said:

Left footer too, something we lack in midfield. Although of course he won’t be in the first team immediately. 

With our injury luck, he'll be anchoring the midfield alongside Miley by February.

3 minutes ago, BoSelecta said:

‘Clear path to the first team’ - he’ll be starting our next league game if Bruno gets booked against Fulham 😂

Our injury record and the idea that he could very well be forced into a first team run this season is probably one of the reasons why he's keen on a move.

I guess the fee for this guy is why we needed to get Manquillo off the books.