Jackie Broon

What an absolute farce this window has been from beginning to end, too early to for Mitchell to be blamed but serious questions need asking of Eales.

https://assafinaonline.com/news_details/en/21078/Saudis-Bahri-and-Marinakis-Capital-Maritime-sign-mega-VLCC-deal coincidence?

Hopefully that and @Shadow Puppets information is right but, other than the obvious personal stuff with Tripper which probably won't be resolved by the transfer window closing, the only person who there have been reports of being unsettled, and has looked not his usual self, is Gordon.

So today's comments by Howe all but confirmed that Gordon has been unsettled by the Liverpool stuff. It seems that we offered him to Liverpool, and they've effectively gone "no ta, we'll just leak that and take him off you for peanuts or nothing when he runs his contract down". What a fucking shitshow.

And that's the only reason why we were in the running for him. If they were willing to sell for what he is worth he would have been snapped up by one of the 6.

That's how I feel about our CB position too, Guehi would have just been a long term replacement for Schar and short term cover for Botman. I think we have enough at CB for this season, barring another freak injury crisis, which is less likely without European football.

I don't think it matters that much, it's only very recently that people started talking about what side a CB plays and requiring a right and left footed CB. That was never even really thought of in the past.

Barnes has just played well there, I don't think that's the 'plan' and I'm disappointed that we haven't strengthened there but he is clearly capable of doing a good job at RW.

That was the player who decided against coming here at the last minute wasn't it? Not the same shit at all.

Not bothered about not signing him in particular, it was a lot of money for a CB who has some limitations. I don't think we're in that desperate a need of another CB this season, it would have be useful but not essential. I'm more bothered that we haven't strengthened at RW.

I think if they want to head off a negative reaction there needs to be more communication from the club about our direction. What's actually happening with the stadium and training ground, is the project still to be No.1 or is that no longer realistic under PSR restrictions? The vacuum of information is going to be filled with frustration and worry if they don't communicate those things to the fans.

We don't have any property we could sell at anywhere near enought to make a difference to PSR. We don't own the land St. James' is on and the training ground land wouldn't be worth more than a mediocre PL player.

"why is he still smiling!"

I don't buy that at all, overseas fans support the clubs that they see winning on TV (except Mike et al. obviously), I do not buy that overseas tours do anything materially significant to increase overseas fan bases. I doubt we picked up more than a few hundred new supporters on our Japan and Australia trips, and those trips could literally cost us places in the league and lose us far more potential overseas supporters than they might have gained us.

I'm not saying don't market but the performance of the team should be the No.1 priority, that is the most powerful marketing tool we have by a mile.

Doesn't mean we should follow that template. Winning matches in the league playing good football will do infinitely more for our profile than marketing people and overseas tours ever could.

The club should be laser focused on the team's best performance and doing everything to enable that. Not fucking off half way across the world to pick up a handful of new supporters and a few million quid in Australia and Japan, at the potential expense of our performance in the league. There is too much of a feel of marketing men justifying their own existence around the club at the moment.

From what has been reported City have specifically challenged the PLs new rules on fair market value (which put the burden of proof on clubs to prove that APTs are at fair market value), not the rules that existed before that. If UEFA are dismissing any property transaction made between suster companies, even at fair market value, that seems like a much more clear-cut case of being anti-competative.

That seems ripe for a legal challenge if Chelsea do get a propper punishment. It's one thing requiring transactions to be fair market value but if they're saying no transactions at all between sister companies that seems clearly anti-competative.

The whole team has looked sloppy and disjointed, he had a poor first half last night but improved significantly in the second. Let's not jump on the back of youngest player in the team.

Been thinking that too. I'm really not sure things like the Japan trip stack up. Clubs get big followings worldwide by being successful in the league and Europe, not by doing pre-season tours. If a pre-season tour to the other side of the world is counterproductive to our performance in real competition then I'm pretty sure it will lose us a lot more money in the long term than it gains us in the short term.

It's just like watching England.

Pitty the rest of our players can't string more than 3 passes together against Forest reserves.

The way it happened just looked like it could pnly be an impact injury rather than something serious.

Doesn't matter, whether we pay in one go or over 100 years it goes in the FFP accounts split over five years (or the length of the player's contract if less than 5 years).