oldtype

There is no way whatsoever to make it an arms-length transaction if a Saudi club is involved. The man who owns us could make any of these clubs sell us any player at any price with a single phone call. It will just be a matter of agreeing a fee that is not the product of bona fide negotiation, but rather an attempt by both sides to figure out a number where we could plausibly argue that it's "market value." It is even more fraught with loans, where we could conceivably even get players for free. I don't really care if it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. We have enough advantages money-wise that we can make do without dipping into the Saudi League well. Plenty of other players out there.

I agree. Even if it's not technically against the rules for us to transact with Saudi clubs, we should avoid doing so if at all possible.

Only one thing can save us now: Shefki Kuqi on a free transfer.

Yeah, give them a raise and prohibit them from ref'ing in other leagues. Sorted.

Arsenal fans are being ridiculous babies. That said, to be fair, I do think it's a problem that Premier League refs are taking lucrative deals to ref one-off matches in UAE or Saudi Arabia when those two countries own Premier League clubs. They should be prohibited from doing that. Can't afford to have even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Antoine Sibierski made 39 appearances and scored 8 goals. No, that's not a typo.

Imagine how screwed we would be if we actually sold more of the players we thought we didn't need in the summer.

Are we not allowed to make injury replacements to the CL squad? I vaguely remember doing something like that on Football Manager a decade ago...

The crazy thing about that season is that I never even thought about getting relegated because I just assumed it couldn't happen to us. In retrospect, finishing 13th was basically a miracle given what we had to work with.

We should just throw Livramento on the left and see how it works. Too much runs through Trippier to start playing him out of position.

Are we even able to make signings for money in January, or does FFP mean loans only?

Apologize for being negative, but I'm more or less ready to throw the Champions League at this point. We're very unlikely to progress anyway with two out of three remaining games being away and it's getting to the point where we can barely field an XI.

This reminds me of that season under Roeder where everybody was injured all the time and the matchday squad was Peter Ramage, David Edgar, Shola Ameobi, and eight randomly selected fans. Except we're somehow still good, I guess.

"I want to see more of Livramento and Hall. How come we spent 60 million pound on two fullbacks who never get to play?" (monkeys paw curls)

It will all come full circle when literally all of our players are injured and Eddie Howe himself will have to kit up and come onto the pitch. Howe, Howe thyself.

Every time even a hint of negativity starts creeping into the discourse the team immediately bounces back with two or three crazy results on the trot. It’s unbelievable.

Howe's ability to get buy-in from players who don't even make the matchday bench might be his greatest superpower. These aren't even young prospects, they are players who clearly have no long-term future at the club. Not only do they somehow stay happy and match-fit, their skills actually improve, which is something I've honestly never seen in the context of any sport.

Looking forward to Matt Richie scoring a hat trick against them.

Any chance they can sack Ten Hag mid-game? Like, have some security guards drag him off the pitch?

On some level I suspect Howe actually has more fun with these cup games where he has to concoct a coherent gameplan based on various scraps from our bench.

Too many goal celebrations reduce our ball in play time, clearly.

We are what, about 24 hours removed from a bunch of people on here complaining about how we spent 60 million this summer on two fullbacks who couldn't play?

I wasn't keeping track. But it would of course be extra special to do it to Manchester United.

Would be hilarious if we were the ones to get Ten Hag sacked

We are preposterously injured and while that’s somehow not affecting the quality of the first team, it is beginning to affect their stamina.