thenige

Strikes me as the main experiment of the spending money on younger prospects who potentially have a high sell on value. Look at the players signed: Wijnaldum Mitrović Mbemba Toney Thauvin All of those in theory were young enough and enough of a prospect that you'd expect them with good performances to be sold on for significant profit. Given the experiment has largely failed he's been a tight bastard pretty much since. Wijnaldum made £12m and was first choice, the rest have either been fleeting with their appearances in the first team or sold at a loss. I don't think we lost a load of money on those that didn't work out, if we sell Mitro for £20m then the profit from him and Wijnaldum would more than cover it. Thats' without even mentioning the £30m we got for Sissoko. You could see why Ashley might be tempted to go down that route again if it weren't for those pesky relegations. Playing devils advocate here, thinking at it from a business perspective, does £20m actually cover a transfer fee of £13m plus wages of close to £9.5m since he's been here? For about 20 Premier league starts (plus appearances as a sub) and 10 goals? Wouldn't really call that a profit as such.

Strikes me as the main experiment of the spending money on younger prospects who potentially have a high sell on value. Look at the players signed: Wijnaldum Mitrović Mbemba Toney Thauvin All of those in theory were young enough and enough of a prospect that you'd expect them with good performances to be sold on for significant profit. Given the experiment has largely failed he's been a tight bastard pretty much since. Wijnaldum made £12m and was first choice, the rest have either been fleeting with their appearances in the first team or sold at a loss.

You can see why in the head he does that the fat f***ing c*** got us relegation twice with exactly that business plan and you can see why he does it - honestly man you have to be kidding me. I can see how he can think it makes sense, but I sure as hell don’t agree with it. We performed at an operating loss of around £90m when we were relegated so yeah it is a massive and uneccessary risk. But clearly he trusts Rafa enough that we can ‘save’ money but not spending millions (essentially the equivalent) on signings.

Nothing has changed from a business sense in Ashley’s mind. The only real significant leap in earnings (at least to cover say £100m transfer spend) comes at CL qualification and the amount we’d need to invest to get close to that is a silly amount. So spend as little as possible and try and stay in the division. That is Ashley’s business plan and little will change. If we do spend, it’s only in younger players who have potential to increase their value. We finished 10th with essentially the same starting XI we have available to us now, so he’s thinking why change anything? The only sticking point is if the manager capable of making us stay up with this squad walks. If he goes we’re all buggered. Depressing for so many reasons, but can see why in his head that it makes sense.

Can’t say I blame him. Somehow I feel the family reasons would be less pressing if he was first choice but wish him well at whichever Championship club takes him.

Yes, what we really need is a work shy midfielder. Who goes missing when the chips are down. Which with us, is a lot.

In fairness I completely forgot Lazaar existed, so Ryder did well to even remember him.

Considering he'll end up being with us for a season and a half that's not really that bad. We've definitely had permanent signings who haven't lasted that long and had far less of an impact. Can't honestly see the point in having a moan about loaning in a good player as it's better than the alternative of signing no fucker at all.

Probably reckon he's worth an absolutely bonkers £40m in the current market. Reckon Ashley will bite their hands off for £30m. And sign Robert Huth as a direct replacement.

Moves that get talked about this much never seem to happen for us anyway. If it's not completed within a few days of it appearing in the press it's pretty much game over.

We’d still be a winger short. Think next season with a run of games Murphy can make the step up.

This. 100% this.

Assume most of you have already seen this, but his brother Josh moved to Cardiff last week - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44438532 Can maybe see the 'Murphy derby' next season now. Wonder if both being in the Prem will potentially invigorate each other?

That £50m figure guaranteed to include signing on/agent fees and the entire contract salary.

Just feel the majority of players we will end up signing this summer will either have been massive failures somewhere or only people with an encyclopedic knowledge of Football Manager are going to know.

Will be gutted to see Merino go if he does, but no point having an unhappy player who doesn't want to be here who isn't getting football. And as others have mentioned, maybe there's more to this back injury than first thought.

There's a reason why he went from QPR to West Brom and is now being linked with Boro. Would rather stick with Atsu and Murphy as backups to be honest.

Has been amazing in Football Manager for the last couple of years. Sold!

Has already agreed a deal with Betis hasn't he?

If he signs for Fulham in the summer would be very tempted to put him in my fantasy team. Think he’d score more goals for Fulham next year in the Prem than any of our strikers got last season.

Wow. That's interesting. He's now 27 years old and so should be much more mature physically and perhaps better prepared for the premier league. Not sure what kind of striker he is though, but man that goal scoring record is outrageous. Wonder if Rafa likes his game. Apparently we had a £6 million option to buy attached to his loan, which we declined at the time. He’s already come out and said he doesn’t want to move back to England and would prefer a move to Italy or Spain. http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2018/05/22/former-newcastle-united-striker-facundo-ferreyra-becomes-free-ag/

On the one hand I'd rather other clubs not have a detailed knowledge of our current cash flow so they can't use it as a reason to ramp up asking prices when we make an approach. On the other, considering our transfer fees generally involve minimum fee release clauses or no cash actually paid, I doubt it makes much difference.

Just been called up to the England U21s for the Toulon tournament despite still being only 19. Think he's not in Cherno Samba territory just yet.

Love the way everyone in the press keeps talking about this 'huge' £6m buy out clause, forgetting that Joselu cost £6m. Suddenly makes it seem a much smaller amount of money in football terms.

Struggling to think of a wide player who'd fit in Rafa's type of system less than Deulofeu.