Jackie Broon

Then again, the media have been briefed for months that we are heavily restricted by FFP and only had a limited pot of money this summer. Within FFP limits (which we still have a lot of leeway with) funds probably aren't an issue, it's pennies to PIF, the issue is that we don't want other clubs we are negotiating with to think we have unlimited funds. Although the Wilson injury might have had some influence over the timing of the deal and what we were willing to pay, I think there is a reason for briefing that PIF loosened the purse strings just for that. For very different reasons to the Ashley era I think the club continues to repeatedly and intentionally mislead the press, public and fans over our financial position.

Actually, band-aid is a proprietary eponym, like calling a vacuum cleaner a hoover, it is actually a name brand We never would've had name brand plasters under Ashley.

Yeah, he looks to have huge potential and that he's be a really useful squad player able to play anywhere across the front three or attacking midfield and seems perfect for our high intensity pressing style of play. As much as I'm delighted with Isak I'll be disappointed if he is instead rather than as well as Pedro.

But I thought we only had a budget of £40m to left?

That's only UEFA FFP, not PL.

Weren't a lot of the local journalists denying that a new bid had even gone in over the weekend when Romano reported it? Which now seems to be completely accepted did happen.

Yeah, Jason Burt's name is on the article and he posted this half an hour after Romano's 'here we go'.

Hadn't done any Denis Wise youtube scouting of him yet after previous disappointments but I'm far more impressed than I was by Hugo Ekitike. He looks far ahead of where Ekitike is at the same age ideal for our style of play.

I thought Dubs had a good preseason and could rightly feel aggrieved that Pope hasn't been made to wait for his starting spot like other new signings, but Pope has won us two points in the last two games that we probably wouldn't have otherwise got.

Obviously because they asked the ref how he saw it, he must have said Stones clattered into Schar, leading with his arm, and got nowhere near the ball, but he didn't think it was a foul. Very high bar and that.

My Mum was a social worker and said it was a notorious nonce hangout.

I think our budget will be based on who is available, willing to sign for us, matches our valuation and would improve our squad. We could well end up spending £40m or less but I don't think that would be due to that being our maximum budget.

Maybe, but if that's that case it's very unlikely that they"ve been briefed on our true budget.

Seems more unlikely that our owners are going around telling journalists what our budget is.

Given the £40m figure I suspect that they might have taken it from the Swiss Ramble post. There's no way our owners are going to be telling anyone what our remaining budget is.

If you're referring to the Swiss Ramble FFP thing you've misunderstood it. That £40m is not what we have to spend, it is the amount of additional loss we could afford within FFP by 23/24 if we have no increase in revenue. That £40m equates to a FFP accounting spend of £100m.

My sister's partner, who's from Lisbon and a Benfica fan, had a similar view on Nunez, he said he didn't really rate him much when we were linked with him in December.

Clubs can't have any discussions with a player, including via their agent, without the agreement of the player's club. I know it seems that happens anyway most of the time, maybe sometimes with the agreement of the clubs maybe sometimes without. But it's not a mess, it's the way it's meant to happen within the rules.

A lot of people were disappointed when we missed out on Jeffers and Zenden and settled for Bellamy and Robert instead.

And that will happen over the next couple of seasons, we have huge scope to increase revenue because our previous owner supressed it so much. Our revenue will increase dramatically.

It's not assumed, it's under their control. The sleeve sponsorship alone would raise that projected FFP transfer budget to 23/24 to £140m. Most business operates on the basis of projections rather than the right now. It's all guesswork but saying that we're operating on the basis that our revenue will potentially stay the same as it was under Ashley sounds pretty unlikely to me.

Yes we can, and we will, we've already got Saudi Amazon on the sleeve for a reported £7m per season.

We have the ability to spend around £300m more on transfer fees without FFP being an issue this season. That drops to £100m if projecting to 23/24 with the assumption of no revenue growth from when Ashley was owner. The reality is our revenue will have increased since then and will dramatically increase over the next two seasons. I think we are not meeting valuations because, rightly or wrongly, our owners will not pay what they feel does not represent good value (Wood aside) and I think we're trying to change the view in the football world that we have unlimited money to spend.

The club has done a great job of convincing everyone that we've only got a tight budget left, severely limited by FFP. Watch us suddenly announce Paqueta, Diaby and Isak at the same time.