Ash

This season’s PL handbook has been released here. Anyone fancy trying to find any mention of the APT rules?

Based on what?

This is about where I’m at too. There are so many contradictions floating around, even solely within Waugh’s piece this morning. Something doesn’t add up and it feels like there is still a game at play. Not quite sure what it is or even to what end but hopefully it’s ultimately about clearing the decks to allow us to go big this summer.

Sky Bet isn’t owned by Sky.

No, they aren’t.

Maresca tends to play with a 4-3-3 so it’ll be interesting to see what they plan on doing with Palmer should Olise sign for them. Hopefully the latter decides they’re a basket case.

Sounds like we're going to be extremely aggressive with our academy recruitment this year. We made some impressive moves last season and it wouldn't be a surprise to see us top it this time around, in terms of both quality and quantity. Not just at U18 level either but further down the age groups too.

How many times have you watched him play?

Apart from not being good enough, as has already been mentioned, we do not have unlimited squad places. As things stand, we’re already at 25 players that need to be registered next season. 1. Pope 2. Dubravka 3. Gillespie 4. Livramento 5. Trippier 6. Krafth 7. Ashby 8. Schar 9. Lascelles 10. Botman 11. Burn 12. Targett 13. Tonali 14. Longstaff 15. White 16. Bruno 17. Joelinton 18. Willock 19. Anderson 20. Almiron 21. J. Murphy 22. Isak 23. Wilson 24. Gordon 25. Barnes Ashby and White probably get loaned out but the above shows we will need to sell a few players to create space for new signings, or sign younger players that don’t require registering.

Archie Gray would be a no-brainer and certainly ticks the opportunistic box for us.

Right wing target for the academy.

Not doubting your info for one minute but this is something I’ve struggled to get my head around for a while when it comes to increasing our budget. Why sell off our prized assets when we have plenty of players who aren’t good enough for where we want to progress to as a club? Now Europe isn’t a factor and we don’t need to hit a club trained quota, Longstaff should be a real consideration to be sold, for example.

Football just doesn’t work like that these days, certainly not at clubs that know what they’re doing when it comes to recruitment. There are so many layers to recruitment; I genuinely think the level of detail would blow people away if they knew what went into it. We’re talking several hundred hours watching a single player and checking various data points. It’s pretty much impossible these days for a manager/head coach to be involved at the initial ID stage due to what goes into it and there are plenty of processes to go through before you’d even involve the coaching staff, mainly because they simply do not have the time with everything else they have to contend with. Not saying Howe shouldn’t have any input but he shouldn’t be leading anything. Other people are employed to do that and it essentially frees the manager/head coach to do what they’re best at on the grass. He can contribute to the player profiles in each position and come up with some non-negotiables but it needs to be in conjunction with the club/Sporting Director/Director of Football. Regardless of what has happened with Ashworth, the overarching responsibility of recruitment needs to remain with or be handed to the next person through the door, working in tandem with the coaching staff but ultimately having the final say.

Really not liking some of these stories at the minute. The manager/head coach should not be the leading voice on recruitment and they certainly shouldn’t have any input into who their boss should be.

You’ve had it explained several times but you’re not listening.

Please stop. You’ve been going on about this for days and it’s clear you don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about.

This is how proper clubs operate and for where we are in terms of PSR and what we need to do to evolve our squad over the next few years, it’s something that certainly does make sense. People may not like it/aren’t used to it but there’s a reason we’ll be doing this. Ashworth knows what he’s doing - trust him.

Not true. It’s a worldwide ban on any form of football under FA rules.

Hopefully we take the full 7.5k allocation for this.

Not seen it officially announced yet.

Could be something in the Williams link. He’s out of contract next summer and Athletic may look to cash in if he isn’t going to sign a new deal. That, or we’re hoping to get him on a free next year.

Got a last minute spare for this if anyone fancies it, DM me if interested.

Don’t really get this mentality. You’ve already said you haven’t really watched Joao Pedro so seems daft to be making assumptions on his ability just because of the league he plays in. There are a good number of players in the Championship that would walk into our squad and several others that would have no issue getting into our starting XI too, Joao Pedro being one of those. There are also numerous examples of players being signed from the Championship and showing their ability at the top level, as well as those that end up in the PL when they win promotion (Brennan Johnson is doing just that this season and is another that would waltz into our side). Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what league a player is from and while I get your point about our targets not remaining static, there will always be some that we retain a long-term interest in and that will be for good reason. On Joao Pedro specifically, he’s captaining Watford at 21, has a lot of experience over here already (which is something we appear to want, not that I agree with it) and has a load of likeable attributes that would suit our style of play under Howe with him also having a huge amount of potential to develop further. There is talent to be had in any league; we just have to ensure the numbers and data back-up the scouting so that we sign the right ones. It’s wrong to be under the impression that players coming from a lesser league wouldn’t improve us to the level required.

Yeah, it lets me apply for three through my account (using two of the others linked) and then I can apply as a single through the one listed as disabled on that account. They’ve never been registered as disabled though, nothing on their account suggests it is either which is what I don’t get.