Jackie Broon

I just can't see any premier league club, other than maybe Man City, agreeing to a loan to us. They might string us along making us waste time, but they will want us to be relegated they're not going to help us out of this predicament in any way.

Nah, they'll be Seville about it.

He's been playing in Europe since 2014, he'll have settled status so possibly the same process as a European player?

My sister's partner is a Benfica fan, he was saying we were linked with him in the Portuguese press when I saw him at Christmas, and that he doesn't rate him. Seems to score plenty though.

I think we need more than than just mobility, Willock is mobile. But one or more new central midfield players are absolutely essential. If we can't win and keep the ball in midfield it doesn't matter how good our defenders and attackers are. Maybe there are other targets being worked on that we don't know about but it's concerning how few solid links there have been to central midfield players.

It has the same ultimate effect and we would still be subject to PL FFP rules if/when we were promoted, which run over the three previous seasons. Any suggestion that we're holding off on signing sponsorship deals to somehow take advantage of a non-existent loophole if we get relegated is utter nonsense.

They are: 2.3 The Executive shall determine whether consideration included in the Club’s Earnings Before Tax arising from a Related Party Transaction is recorded in the Club’s Annual Accounts at a Fair Market Value. If it is not, the Executive shall restate it to Fair Market Value.

Or they're distancing themselves from an embarrassing failure, which might also be the reason why no Saudi sponsorship deals have been announced yet.

Mostly because they stood off and let us pass it around sideways and backwards for most of the first half.

Under Bruce: West Ham H – 46% Villa A – 53% Southampton H – 36% Man U A – 36% Leeds H – 35% Watford A – 48% Wolves A – 48% Spurs H – 35% Average – 42.1% Under Howe: Brentford H – 52% Arsenal A – 34% Norwich H – 31% Burnley H – 48% Leicester A – 53% Liverpool A – 26% Man City – 28% Man U H – 31% Watford H – 52% Average – 39.4% Average discounting Norwich – 40.5%

Under Rafa we could at times be described as negative but it was effective, with a weaker squad than we have now. Under Bruce we were both negative and ineffective. That is what he was rightly criticised for. Under Howe we're equally ineffective (and have equally low possession statitics). Whether positive or negative what we need is a manager who can get us playing effective football.

We've seen much, much more out of these players we've seen Willock score 7 in 7, Longstaff look good enough to be linked with Man U, Lascelles lead one of the most solid defences in the league. What you're saying is exactly what people were saying in defence of Bruce.

Because Steve fucking Bruce managed to keep this dog dirt squad up last season. We were drawing by fine margins under Bruce this season, it should only take a moderate improvement to turn those draws into wins. Howe hasn't managed to find that moderate improvement over Steve fucking Bruce, that is inexcusable.

It would be very damaging in terms of FFP, especially if we spaff a load more money in this window and still go down. The positive position we have now in terms of FFP would be completely gone and our hands would be pretty tied in building from there.

He just needs to be given more time.

Just before they play Watford, who are the team we'll need to finish above to stay up. Burnley are going down whatever.

We've actually gone backwards under Howe. Individual errors cost us against Brentford and Norwich, today we were just shit.

We played 3 at the back against Brentford iirc.

We're a long way off being hamstrung by FFP given that transfer fees are amortised over the length of the contract. If we sign a player for 50m on a five year contract that's only £10m towards this season's FFP calculation.

Not at all when you consider we've just spent £25m on a 30 year old with probably no resale value and who will be a bit part player at best if we stay up, whereas Botman could be part of the spine of our team for a decade.

Yeah, he looks canny skinny with his top off. Although, that doctor/physio must be a bit of a unit!

The one Tripper was on was D-CROG, it's due to fly to Rome today (it's a charter plane that does random trips all over, so it's not likely to be anything to do with us) https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/d-crog

Transfer fees are amortised in the accounts over the length of the contract so I don't think it would make much difference to FFP. Might be wrong though, it's complicated accounting stuff I imagine.

Or probably Leeds.

Particularly from Burnley, it's about four changes