timeEd32

I've been wondering this. Less so about Hall, but someone like Harrison. Does his fee count against our spend? Or is it excluded because he's an academy player? And, if that's the case, does that also mean we can actually add it to our academy costs and use his fee to increase what we're able to deduct from PSR calculations?

Isn't there some new language in the rules that means you can't use a loan to buy method to push out the transfer fee if the clause is too easy to achieve? Basically you can't take the piss with something like "becomes permanent upon one appearance." A clause based solely on a team that finished 4th the previous season not getting relegated seems like it'd be taking the piss.

The answer is we have to do everything we can to sell Targett (assuming he's not our starting LB). His wages are crazy.

He's going to be awesome next season.

I've seen lots of things that say European places will go down an extra spot, but haven't seen anyone explicitly say 7th would be EL (with the right cup winner). It makes logical sense since getting a 5th CL spot wouldn't, presumably, take away a EL spot. Either way it definitely increases our odds of European football and it most likely makes the EL a much more realistic target.

That's what I'm focused on. I'm assuming (though find it hilarious no one seems to know for sure) that England getting the 5th CL spot will make 7th Europa League instead of Conference, assuming a top 6 team wins the FA Cup which is also likely given who's left (or we'll win it).

Coefficient update 1. Italy - 15.571 (+0.857 since last week) 2. Germany - 14.500 (+0.572) 3. England - 13.875 (no change, thanks Arsenal) 4. France - 13.250 (+1.000) 5. Spain - 13.187 (+0.250) Despite Arsenal's defeat I think England have to be considered the favorites for the second spot. A lot of things went right in the last two weeks. Italy still haven't had a team eliminated and are in an incredibly strong spot, though its three CL teams are all away for the second leg. Brighton v. Roma could help England make up ground. It's annoying that Freiburg got through, but Frankfurt is out. The CL second legs will be interesting. West Ham v. Freiburg in the EL is huge. France is pretty much done with Lens, Toulouse, and Rennes all going out yesterday. Betis is out so Spain is left with 5 out of 7 teams and four of them are in the CL. They will need Villareal and Barcelona or Atletico to join Real on deep runs.

I wasn’t just thinking of games we deserved to lose, but also ones we could have had a moment gone against us the way PSG, Chelsea, and Milan (Maignan save) did. Brighton away - this one we were just pretty lucky. I think we cleared two off the line and Pope made a great save on a header. Wolves away - we probably should have won, but it took a 90th minute goal of the season contender volley to get the point so not hard to imagine how we lose Man Utd away - we should have scored in the first half; they had two great chances at the end, including a Rashford header that just missed Arsenal away - Lots of pressure, Nketiah late chance kick saved by Pope Leicester home - I hesitate to include this because we battered them. I don’t know how we didn’t score. But that Pope save on Castagne was truly spectacular and in the nightmare that is this season it probably would have gone in. Probably more realistic to swap in Leeds away for the last one where we got two penalties and also saved one.

Eh, I can see the point but not sure I agree with it. We're still benefiting from things he's helped put in place that have helped move us back to being a professional club. And now we get a second chance to make an appointment with the club in a better place and with us knowing what we liked and didn't like about how approach to being a DoF. And we're probably going to profit from the experience.

No way the treble winning best team in the world should be losing at Wolves or drawing at home to Palace either. Shit happens in football. I think this is another way last season distorted things for people. Plenty has been said about how finishing 4th raised expectations ahead of schedule, but also we only lost five games, a feat only matched by the title winners. The games we lost were to Liverpool x2, City away, Arsenal, and Villa away. Going back to April of 2022 that Villa game was the only league game we lost that isn't just easily accepted like City / Liverpool / Arsenal. As far as not losing games goes we were about as good as anyone bar the best team on the planet for over a calendar year. But while we were really good, we were also really fortunate at times. I can think of 4-5 draws from last season that could have easily been losses. Everything went right for us. Now the opposite is happening - we can't catch a break. The injuries and related effects have exposed problems that have always been there (go read that Villa thread where Emery is better than Eddie, Burn is a donkey, our back four is too slow, we need a DM, and there's a dumb amount of space between our midfield and defenders). This season is no doubt disappointing (yet still has some wonderful moments). I wish people could just accept that and chill out instead of making every week a referendum on the manager's future.

That 1-0 win in 2010/11 was Hughton's last win for us. We were 5th after that game. He lost three and drew two in the next five and then was sacked. Including caretakers, Eddie Howe is our 19th manager since SBR and that 3-1 win at Highbury. Hughton is the only one of those 19 to win there. In 18 games at the Emirates we've only scored in five of them. Pardew was the manager for three of them and we haven't scored since he left.

Yes, would be revenue.

I just meant their squad options. Their bench the last few games is pretty uninspiring, though still a far cry from the triple GK, Ritchie, Dummett, Parkinson choices.

£12m release clause, quick £10m profit for them. I'm intrigued.

"He needs to decide if he is going to make that jump." This is a weird line. He's already jumped, Jim. You need to pay for the parachute.

Everyone, me included, is dreaming up every possible way we can fix / beat / tear down FFP. But this thread is the actual answer to our problems.

I don’t think we’re capable of playing and conserving energy. But they are a bit thinner without Jesus and Zinchenko, both of whom may annoyingly make it back just in time for us. If they don’t everyone but Havertz played 90 minutes tonight.

It sucks for him, but it's pretty hilarious if they put Ashworth into an untenable situation with us and then only after realized we weren't messing around.

If this had been us in 2022 there'd be a ton of headlines like - "Newcastle's Saudi leaders learning on the fly" and "Saudi's hit with Premier League reality" But for Man United I bet the majority of headlines just go along with these comments and paint us as the unreasonable villain.

What a delicious statement. Clearly under his skin.

"No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter-pressing situation.”

Feels like PSG or bust to me (assuming we don't do something insane like sell him to Liverpool).

I'd give no more than a cameo to both.

This is speculation on my part, but I have a feeling the terms in Ashworth’s deal are beyond standard for the position.

This is what I’m most worried about. Probably our two most contentious games in the last year were Arsenal away last season and then at home this season. They hate the way we play and they will feel aggrieved by the last game. They are definitely going to target Bruno. We are really going to miss Joelinton and Pope in this one.