timeEd32

What did I just read?

Yeah, that is part of the math problem for expansion too. In our case it also depends on if PIF will pay for it out of the kindness of their hearts or saddle the club with debt. If the former then it doesn't really matter what it costs in either scenario.

Yes, being able to invest is critical to kickstarting things. But Chelsea is also the best example of what I'm talking about. Two decades of success propped up by owner losses. It made them a global powerhouse, but they are now also vulnerable. Despite having a higher profile and far more recent success they now have a £100m+ deficit compared to their 'inferior' neighbors. They've made a business out of player trading, but that is also the most vulnerable revenue stream next to European payments. I'd much rather be in Tottenham's position heading into the next decade or two. I'm not arguing for leaving SJP by the way. I've said before I think it's a fairly simple math problem on what revenue number the current stadium can get to. I also think our current number is deflated because of various Ashley leftovers, so the gap to at least a Chelsea isn't quite as big. But I don't think you can just dismiss £50m+ as if it's nothing. If you accept lower matchday income then you need to make up for it elsewhere as Liverpool have managed to do.

Yup, we're on a decent trajectory and I'm optimistic about commercial deals being announced this summer. But it's a very, very big gap. I don't really understand this disclaimer. Sure, it would help in the short term. But to me the attractive thing about increasing these revenue streams is you can get to a point where it becomes owner agnostic. The biggest benefit PIF could provide isn't spending ungodly sums of money to win a few trophies in a decade or two before leaving for one reason or another; it's positioning the club to be a sustainable force for many decades to come.

Copying this from another post... He got injured four times this season: 3 games in a week (hamstring) - Fair to be annoyed by this; he is fragile 6 games / 368 minutes in 2.5 weeks (hamstring) - Not reasonable 6 games / 453 minutes in 2.5 weeks (calf) - Even less reasonable Torn pec wrestling - freak injury IMO the responsibility for two of his four injuries this season are on the club. A player with his fitness record, who may not have even been 100% fit at the time, can't be asked to do what he did on two separation occasions.

Yes, all comparisons to London need to have some context applied. But it's not even about matching. We are currently facing an annual deficit of £200m-400m plus in matchday + commercial revenue. No matter what the PL and UEFA rules are the business side of the club needs to be spending every waking hour figuring out how to make that gap smaller every year.

At some level I can see that argument. For example, the ~£20m gap between Liverpool and Arsenal being worth preserving Anfield. But the gap from us to Chelsea is the equivalent of our front of shirt and sleeve sponsors. No one would describe those as meaningless. The difference between us and Man United or Spurs is the equivalent of selling a Bruno or Isak every season.

That's misleading though because some matchday things show up in commercial and any use of the stadium that isn't a club's games is going to fall into commercial.

What Ornstein says there is kind of wrong anyway because part of UEFA's model is effectively a luxury tax. The difference is they do also have the PSR-like max loss over three year thing, which I think is the worst part of the three UEFA pillars.

The Aramco Pitch at St. James' Park. £15m per season.

I can certainly understand the merits of selling a 32 year old striker who, in a best case scenario, requires a managed workload to be consistently available. And we need to be bringing through a younger player anyway. But I do think it's generally underestimated how difficult it could be to replace his output.

It makes sense - they don't want to go back to a club / nation being able to completely take the piss. And it wouldn't make sense with UEFA's rules anyway. But new rules with defined penalties and the ability to go even 10% above whatever limit would be a vast improvement. No matter what comes in increasing revenue is still going to be paramount.

I regret bringing this up as I really can't be bothered to do the Wilson thing again. But if you look back to before the pec injury the majority were still on board with the idea of Wilson as an extremely valuable 2nd/3rd striker. The pec injury sent everyone over the edge, which is silly because it's such a dumb/random injury. It's the fact that it was his fourth injury of the season that made it the last straw, but it's not really fair because his second and third injuries this season were down to completely irresponsible usage.

Wilson could be fit enough if we could use him responsibly.

That fourth tier would also include Alvarez and probably has to include Wilson also, which is why I'm not as keen to rush him out the door as some.

Haaland Isak Watkins Nunez Hojlund Solanke Toney Nunez and Hojlund both have the potential to climb a tier or two. The next tier probably includes Adebayo, Awoniyi, and Richarlison. When you do this exercise you realize that it'd be insane to sell Isak for anything less than a top 3 transfer fee of all time.

It's all hypothetical still and the devil is in the details. But yes, any version of rules that imposes fines as punishments means we could effectively do as much as our owners want. At the very least it would provide a level of flexibility that doesn't exist today.

Balancing this with the UEFA rules will be interesting, but I think they can be approached with some confidence that as long as the overspending is within reason and at least for the first few years then the punishment would only be fines. If this gets voted in and the PL and UEFA both effectively have luxury taxes then we will know pretty quickly how big PIF's ambition is with us.

For some reason I only noticed it this season, but I just looked it up and they installed the two-tiered advertising boards in 2021 so they could offer "the most commercially valuable pitch side media space in the Premier League." Took out 1,100 seats to do it.

I don't know who else has it but one thing I've noticed recently is Man City's advertising hoardings are obnoxiously big. They seem to be twice the height. I assume everyone will do it soon. Not sure if that would require killing the first row?

They will be more than fine. I would not be shocked if they experienced a golden era sometime in the next decade or so.

It’s the difference in the season, but also half of those games were very unfortunate timing.

If we had won (and we should have whether 1-0 or 2-0) I would have described it as a professional performance. Considering the injuries, the lack of bench options, three games in a week, and our defensive frailties the approach seemed spot on to me. They were dead at 2-0 and we should have gotten there.

This idea that gets floated that we should have seen improvement since December as if the manager is the only thing holding us back is such a crock of shit narrative.

The live table was looking so nice...